Sale of Ledo 2021: A Transaction That Changed Fortenova

Five years ago, on March 29, 2021, Fortenova Group announced that it was selling its most valuable food business — Ledo, Ledo Čitluk, and Frikom — to British Nomad Foods for €615 million, on a “cash-free, debt-free” basis.

All money for debt repayment

This means that the buyer takes over the company without cash and without debt: all cash surpluses remain with the seller, and all previous debt is settled beforehand or remains in the old structure. Such a formula is standard in large M&A transactions as it allows the buyer to pay the real value of the operational business, while providing the seller with a clear amount for debt repayment.

In Fortenova’s case, this was crucial: all proceeds from the sale were directed towards reducing indebtedness, which management confirmed multiple times.

Indictment against Todorić

Ironically, on the same day, the Croatian public received another major news: it was announced that USKOK had raised the so-called “bill of exchange” indictment against Ivica Todorić and 22 others, charging them with the illegal issuance of guarantees worth HRK 17.8 billion (approximately €2.3 billion) — an amount nearly four times greater than the achieved price for Ledo.

This symbolically placed the transition from Agrokor to Fortenova in a particularly dramatic context: while Fortenova was cleaning up and selling the healthiest part of the portfolio, the legal remnants of the past experienced the greatest escalation.

Operating profit, but…

The sale of Ledo was one of the key moves in the financial restructuring at the time. During the same period, Fortenova also finally completed the transfer of Mercator from Agrokor into its structure (April 23, 2021), along with the refinancing of €385 million of Mercator’s debt, thereby consolidating regional retail.

Financially, the year ended with a turnaround: Fortenova was in the black for the first time in five years in 2021, with a net profit of HRK 523 million, with the decisive role played by the profit from the sale of frozen food. However, a good portion of debt and problems remained. Consolidated results showed a loss of HRK 621 million.

Ledo after Fortenova

For Nomad Foods, the largest European producer of frozen food, this was a strategic entry — not only into the region but also into ice cream production, which they had not previously engaged in. The factory in Zagreb became an investment platform: from 2021 to 2025, Nomad is investing over €40 million in modernization — from King ice cream lines to robotic packaging and cooling systems.

Capacity has grown to 90 million ice creams annually, and Ledo plus in 2024 achieves €183.6 million in revenue with over a thousand employees.

In other words: the business remained locally rooted but technologically empowered and export-oriented.

Continuation of divestitures

The sale of Ledo reduced debt but did not eliminate the key problem — the ownership structure burdened by sanctions. From 2022, Sberbank and VTB, as Russian state banks, became sanctioned entities, making it difficult for Fortenova to refinance and access capital.

Therefore, a new model of ownership restructuring emerged in 2023-2024: a transaction in which Open Pass (a company led by Pavle Vujnovac) takes over the shares of sanctioned owners, with a total value of up to €660 million. In July 2024, it was confirmed that Fortenova no longer had sanctioned co-owners, and operational ownership transferred to Vujnovac’s Dutch holding.

Divestitures continued. The largest after Ledo was the sale of the Agricultural Division to Podravka and EBRD for €333 million at the beginning of 2025, further reducing debt and narrowing Fortenova’s focus on retail and food.

Epilogue

The sale of Ledo in 2021 was a turning point: the largest private deal in Croatia, a key step in Fortenova’s restructuring, and a symbolic milestone in the legacy of Agrokor. On the same day that Fortenova made the biggest leap towards a sustainable future, the judiciary warned of the scale of the financial collapse from the previous period.