FT Journalist Who Revealed Plenković’s Threat to Allianz: The Prime Minister’s Statements Angered and Surprised Us

The Financial Times reported that the Croatian government pressured the German Allianz to take over the Russian stake in Fortenova. Deutsche Welle journalist Srećko Matić spoke with journalist Olaf Storbeck from the Financial Times who wrote the original article.

Below, we fully present the interview published on Deutsche Welle’s website.

Mr. Storbeck, the Financial Times is a leading global business newspaper. Why is FT interested in what is happening in a small country like Croatia?

Croatia is a member of the Eurozone, and Fortenova is the largest retail chain in the entire Balkans and one of the largest companies in the region. It generates an annual turnover of five billion euros and employs about 45,000 workers. Therefore, it is an extremely important company. Moreover, we are, of course, very interested in the relationship with sanctioned Russian business entities in the European Union.

How long have you been working on this investigation at FT?

We have been working on the Fortenova story with several colleagues at several different locations in multiple countries. We researched for several weeks and have published several articles so far. I was responsible for the lead that leads to Allianz in Germany. This aspect was actually a byproduct of the investigation of the entire complex related to Fortenova and Sberbank. During the investigation of all these transactions, we stumbled upon the aspect related to Allianz.

In this context, FT claims that the Croatian government pressured the German insurer Allianz after the Croatian pension fund owned by them (AZ) withdrew from a 500 million euro transaction to acquire 42.5 percent of the Russian Sberbank’s stake in the Fortenova group?

Not only was there pressure from the Croatian government or from the Croatian regulator (HANFA, ed.), Allianz also informed the German federal government in Berlin about this pressure. This is, in my opinion, a very important aspect. We have evidence confirming that there was pressure. And we also have evidence that the German government was informed about it.

What sources do you have based on which you make claims about the pressure on Allianz from official Zagreb?

We have great confidence in our sources. We do not publish our articles on the principle of hearsay; the journalistic rule always applies that we need at least two sources, one independent of the other. Or a combination of documents and sources. And we adhere to that at FT.

In one of your articles, you mention meetings of Croatian officials with representatives of Allianz. What happened at those meetings? Who participated in them?

From what we know, there were several video conferences. On one side, there was a video conference of the Croatian ambassador in Berlin, Gordan Bakota, with representatives of Allianz responsible for the region that includes Croatia. At that meeting, it was argued that Fortenova is important for the Croatian economy; the ambassador argued that it is a significant problem and asked Allianz to help resolve that problem.

However, given that Allianz had apparently already concluded before that meeting that this transaction would be commercially meaningless for them, the ambassador’s intervention clearly did not bear fruit. Allianz did not change its decision.

And what happened next?

After that, Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić Radman apparently requested a conversation with a member of the management board of Allianz SE. The minister presented similar arguments as the ambassador. However, that intervention also did not bear fruit. Allianz remained with its earlier decision. Then, after that, the Croatian regulator sent a letter to Allianz’s company in Croatia. This letter was understood by Allianz as an open threat. A few weeks after that letter, the regulator began conducting inspections in Allianz’s pension fund (AZ, ed.), and HANFA confirmed to local media that the investigation is ongoing due to the manner and circumstances of their decision regarding Fortenova.

The Croatian opposition claims that Germany sent a diplomatic protest note to Croatia. Do you know anything about that?

I am not aware of that. I only know that the federal government in Berlin was thoroughly informed about the actions of the Croatian government.

Croatian journalists in Zagreb have recently asked Prime Minister Plenković about the writings in FT. He says that the Financial Times has ‘ridiculous theses’?

We have heard about those statements from the Croatian Prime Minister. And that has greatly angered and surprised us. He practically publicly stated that our story is actually fabricated. That it is meaningless. What he says is nonsense.

Especially content-wise, his statement makes no sense. But what particularly struck us is the fact that we have been trying for weeks through various channels to contact the Croatian government. We informed several different services in Zagreb about the results of our investigation, that is, we confronted them with our findings. But they did not take the opportunity to convince us that we were wrong.

Which services did you contact in Croatia?

For example, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Zagreb, which, according to our knowledge, was responsible for that, that is, for establishing contacts with the management of Allianz. The ministry did not respond to our inquiries at all. The Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in Berlin did not respond to my first inquiry at all. Then, a week later, I sent a second inquiry. And I said that if there was no response, we would have to write that the Embassy did not respond to our inquiry. And then they replied to us, actually only confirming that they received the first inquiry with our questions and added that it is speculation they do not wish to comment on. Everyone has the right not to respond to a journalistic inquiry; this is not the first time.