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Banks promise continued finance to Agribusiness IKRHungarian agribusiness IKR is expected to continue operations after it received written promise from its creditor banks that they will carry on financing the company, CEO Attila Szaxon said. |
Raiffeisen Bank withdrew a liquidation request it had filed against IKR early July. The early July move had prevented the signing of an agreement with the banks. The CEO told MTI on Wednesday that the company had closed last year with losses of around HUF 2.4bn compared to profits of almost HUF 100m in the previous year. The CEO attributed the losses to damages of HUF 1.5bn suffered through rape seed purchases and a treasury banking facility concluded with one of the banks, as a result of which the company had losses of HUF 3.8bn. The CEO said IKR needs an annual loan stock of around HUF 30bn to finance the company. If IKR receives this, it will have revenue of HUF 50bn-60bn this year compared to HUF 94bn last year. In 2008, revenue exceeded HUF 100bn, the CEO said. He also noted that if the company's financing is in order, producers will not be affected at all by the company's problems. IKR is expected to involve a new investor into its operation, with talks scheduled to be closed in August. These will result in a HUF 3bn capital raise, a further condition to bank loans. The CEO said the company would be best off if the capital raise was carried out by the Czech-registered company Agrofert because this company owns the Slovak fertiliser maker Duslo, which IKR has had a long-standing partnership with. The AGRARHASZON.HU reported before IKR would decide whether to file for bankruptcy protection. IKR controls 14pc of Hungary's planting seed market, 15pc of the pesticide and herbicide market and one-third of the market for artificial fertiliser. It has 30-35pc of the market for farm machinery.
| 2010-07-29 01:49:00 |
