I am against the establishment of a state holding company for managing public enterprises

It is unusually quiet these days at the Ministry of Economy. The new minister, Tomislav Panenić, spends more time at Banski Dvori, where Prime Minister Orešković continuously calls meetings of his team, than at the Ministry, and there is still no deputy or assistant minister to carry out the work.

There is not even a spokesperson to entertain journalists while they wait for the minister. The long-unattended space of the minister’s office does not yet indicate that it has a new occupant. Panenić has not yet chosen his permanent seat at the conference table, which indicates that visitors are still rare. Among the first, he spoke with the team from Lider, which he chose for his first major ministerial interview.

• There is an impression that this government has strategically opted for the sale of certain state-owned companies that are currently functioning well. Podravka, Končar, HEP, Croatian Postal Bank… were mentioned. The previous government also did not shy away from privatization announcements. What is your opinion on the sale of these companies today? – My main task is to bring the companies in the state portfolio to a level of success, and only then can we make decisions about selling them. One such example is HPB, which has been restructured and is now a very successful bank.

• How will you do this with Petrokemija? – I would not speak about individual companies now, but only after a detailed analysis. I can say that we will conduct a detailed analysis in those where the state has small shares, and which are not strategically important for Croatia, and then provide recommendations on what to do with them. These shares do not financially mean anything in solving budget deficits, but they are important because they complicate management. The state is not specialized in managing such small shares in companies, and specialist agencies would manage them much more effectively.

• Are you proposing the establishment of a new agency or will everything fall under the state holding? – I am not in favor of establishing a state holding. If holdings were generally successful, we would probably have several such successful models in the country. I am more for quality restructuring of companies, and if successful directors gather companies that engage in the same activities, I see no problem in possibly connecting such companies. My main objection to the state holding is that we cannot include companies that manage natural resources, such as Hrvatske vode and Hrvatske šume, with companies that are in the market. Their interests are completely different. One is managed with an economic, purely profitable approach, while the other focuses on sustainable development, and this would complicate the work of the management of such a holding.

• Does this mean that the idea has been abandoned? – I will always be against the idea of connecting such types of companies into a holding. Now is the time to deal with individual public enterprises and their management. It is not enough to just have your representative on the supervisory board. One of the aggravating factors is that people are in a conflict of interest for a year after leaving the supervisory board, so qualified and competent people do not even want to do that job. Only people in political positions can afford such a luxury of not working in their profession a year later.

You can read the entire interview in the new issue of Lider.