The management of Varteks today issued a call to shareholders for an extraordinary general meeting to be held on May 21 of this year, where, among other things, a decision will be made regarding the capital increase. This was announced on the Zagreb Stock Exchange, and the call stated that the share capital currently amounts to €301,601.16 divided into 28,889 shares.
According to the proposal, the share capital would be increased by €100,004.76, bringing it to a total of €401,605.92. A maximum of €2,500,004.16 should be paid for the capital increase, which means that in that case, the share capital would amount to €2,801,605.32. The price per share will be €10.44.
The call states that existing shareholders are excluded from the legal preemptive right to subscribe for new shares. It also states that investors will be allowed to acquire shares with voting rights without the obligation to publish a takeover bid if acquiring shares with voting rights would create an obligation to publish a takeover bid. Of course, this is subject to the Assembly’s decision, given that it is a proposal from the Management.
The call was announced to Lider by Management Board member Jelena Bošnjak, who stated that there is interest in the capital increase, and we contacted her earlier regarding the news about the suspension of Varteks workers on April 5 due to the non-payment of the second half of their February salaries. However, as she said, the workers were paid the second part of their February salaries two days ago, five days after the suspension, thanks to a loan provided by one of the company’s shareholders – Stjepan Čajić, and the workers returned to their jobs. When asked if other shareholders had offered loans, Bošnjak replied negatively, only emphasizing that Čajić requested the loan to be repaid from the business from which he originally planned to repay the loan from Zagrebačka banka and HBOR, but that proposal was rejected by those banks.
How Čajić will be repaid for the loan was not specified, but although Bošnjak did not mention it, one should not exclude the possibility that he converts his claims into shares. He has recently become the second largest shareholder with 24.41% of the shares (the largest remains Marko Vučijević, who controls 24.9% of the shares), and it was precisely after the increase of Čajić’s ownership stake that there was a change at the helm of Varteks when Bošnjak took over from the previous CEO Dražen Dobiš, receiving a five-year mandate that began on March 1.
– When I took over the position, I found the company in a catastrophic state, and no one gave me hope that I would stay longer than two weeks as a member of the Management Board. However, we managed to pay the salaries for January, and the payment of the remaining part of the salaries for February for the workers in the plant was made with the help of a loan provided by Stjepan Čajić at the end of the third month – said Bošnjak.
