Page 100 - SE Outlook Regions 2023

in the first nine months of the year. The number of trips they made was
slightly lower compared to the pre-crisis 2019 when they stood at 567.

Of the 519 trips, 44.9% were made to Dubrovnik-Neretva County,
31.2% to Split-Dalmatia County and the remaining 23.9% to Zadar
County, Istria County, Primorje-Gorski Kotar County and Sibenik-Knin
County.

The Croatian IT industry also did well in 2022, setting grounds for even
better performance in 2023. In September, Croatian IT company Span
opened a cyber security centre in the capital Zagreb. The centre was
opened in cooperation with Israeli Cybergym and is the first such facility
in this part of Europe.

The centre will aim to prepare more cyber security experts as
estimations show that within two years the need for such experts will
increase significantly.

In the food and retail sector, Croatia’s largest private company,
Fortenova Group, reported that its consolidated adjusted Ebitda
increased by 20% y/y to HRK2bn (€265mn) in the first nine months of
2022. The consolidated revenue rose 38% y/y to more than HRK30bn
in January-September, the company said in a press release on its
preliminary results.

Excluding the effect of the integration of Slovenian retailer Mercator, the
revenue from continuous operations grew by 15% y/y, mainly thanks to
the good tourism season, significant operational improvements and
partly due to high inflation.

Fortenova Group is the successor of bankrupt concern Agrokor, which
started its business operations in April 2019. At the time, Agrokor’s debt
to Russian Sberbank was turned into equity. Following international
sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine, Sberbank has been
seeking to sell its stake.

In November, local media reported that Sberbank had sold its stake to
Saif Alketbi, a private investor from the United Arab Emirates, for just
€250mn. In response, the Croatian authorities decided to recommend
to the European Commission to put under sanctions two local
businessmen who were allegedly involved in the sale of the 43.4%
stake in Fortenova Group.

The Croatian foreign ministry is gathering evidence of violations of EU
sanctions in the deal and is expected to recommend to the EC to
include the two local businessmen, Kresimir Filipovic and Miodrag
Borojevic, on the list of sanctioned people. The two businessmen are
believed to be in Dubai at present.

Croatia is also expected to recommend sanctions for the
Dutch-registered company SBK ART, a company owned by Sberbank
that holds its stake in Fortenova Group.

100 SE Outlook 2023 www.intellinews.com