The story has spread that the Široki Brijeg Mepas would gladly part with the Osijek Kandit for around 25 to 30 million euros. At one time, there was a fierce battle for the takeover of Kandit between Kraš, when Nadan Vidošević took the helm, and Mepas, which ended in 2011 when Mepas purchased it from the then Kandit Group for six million euros. This was the penultimate acquisition of the Široki Brijeg company in Croatia, which had already acquired Osijek’s Saponia, Split’s Brodomerkur, Zadar’s Maraska, and Bjelovar’s Koestlin.
So far, the latest acquisition of Mepas in Croatia, the purchase of the Park Hotel in Makarska, was realized recently, at the end of March. This is the second hotel in the Mepas Group. The first is the luxury (five-star) Mepas Hotel in Mostar, primarily known to the Croatian public for being chosen by fugitive from Croatian justice Zdravko Mamić for holding his press conferences.
After the passing of Mirko Grbešić, the founder of Mepas, in August last year, his roles in the management and supervisory boards of companies in Croatia were taken over by his sons Ivan and Filip. Ivan is now a member of the Management Board of Saponia and Koestlin and the president of the Supervisory Board at Kandit and Brodomerkur. Filip is the deputy of the Supervisory Board at Koestlin and Kandit and a member of the Supervisory Board of Brodomerkur. With Mepas’s acquisition of Park Hotels, all three of Mirko’s daughters – Klara and Maja Grbešić and Lucija Mikulić, have for the first time taken leading managerial positions, all three equal members of the Management Board of Park Hotels, the only Mepas company in Croatia that (so far) does not have an ‘external’ professional manager in the main operational management position.
The heirs of the late Mirko, who were well known to many entrepreneurs in Croatia, are little known in the business public. In the vastness of the internet, this article from Lider will likely be the first to feature statements from Ivan Grbešić, but unfortunately, our request for him to send us his photograph was kindly declined. You will search in vain for photographs of Mirko’s heirs. They do not exist!
– Mepas has never been a company that was media-exposed. The public has never been deprived of essential information, but we have also never overly offered ourselves to the media. We will not change that practice in the future. I have been actively in business for many years and personally know all the important entrepreneurs in our business and have very good private and business relationships. It is normal that due to the age difference, my contacts with people my late father knew for many years cannot be the same, but that does not mean they will be any worse in any way – Ivan tells us, whom we barely managed to ‘provoke’ into a few written responses to our inquiries.
