Serbian Alta Bank has announced its intention to fully take over Stopanska Banka Bitola. Following the grand entrance of Serbian Telekom, this is part of a strategic positioning of the neighboring economy on a more long-term basis and represents a depiction of our detachment from the Western economic circle, and with that, also from major deals that can stimulate our market!
A debate between DUI and VREDI regarding the entry of the “Serbian World” into our economy seems to be opening our eyes to a piece of news that probably didn’t get much attention in our country: the entry of a not very propulsive Belgrade bank into the country’s financial environment, an area where not many significant things happen and even fewer changes take place.
While we’re on the subject of the debate as an initiator for a more careful consideration of the economic relations between Serbia and our country, let’s just mention for those who don’t know that the integrationists from Mala Rečica are reprimanding VREDI for promising, in its 2024 election program, to establish an Albanian bank with dominant Albanian capital, as a guarantee for the economic empowerment of Albanians and balanced regional development, as they say.
Today, instead of fulfilling this promise, acting as a servant of VMRO, VREDI has opened the doors for the entry of the ‘Serbian World’ into the banking sector of North Macedonia through “Alta Bank”, DUI stated in a statement. And continues by saying that “this is not an ordinary financial investment, but a direct political and economic project of Belgrade to take control of the strategic institutions of the state. The bank is not just a private company – it’s a mechanism for political influence, capital laundering, and creating the country’s economic dependency on the interests of Serbia. At the same time, it is pointed out that Maja Kadievska Vojnović ended up with a deal to head the “acquired bank” (Stopanska Banka AD Bitola), in the Mickoski – Vučić negotiations.
The fact is that she is the daughter of VMRO-DPMNE senior official Duško Kadievski, who was Minister of Transport and Construction and a close friend of late President Boris Trajkovski. She is considered a member of the ‘red-black’ party and was the Deputy Governor of the National Bank (this is our data), and in the last parliamentary elections she represented the party platform called “Platform 1198”, which denotes an ambitious number of measures that fell apart in reality with that well-known pulling of the sleeve of the first person of the Chamber of Prime Minister Mickoski’s coat.
This, of course, is a topic of its own, which we will address soon.
Mickoski undoubtedly owes her for that effort, which, if nothing else, is physically impressive, to explain all what Mickoski’s government will undertake. But the party leader also pulled the chair from under her when determining the ministers in his government in the sectors related to finance, but of course also when running for governor of the NBRM.
Otherwise, DUI, let’s get back to them briefly, assesses that this move is a depiction of our economy being taken off the Euro-Atlantic path, and that VREDI is complicit in these moves of the coalition government, and they also mention the President of the country, who is silently watching all this.
There are several oddities in this transaction between the two banks.
First of all, why is there a determination to take over Stopanska Banka Bitola by a smaller financial institution with modest capital? Secondly, how will Kadievska Vojnović manage the Bank if there is a modest stock score behind the acquirer? At least for now!
The new “boss” of the Bitola bank has acquired all the ordinary shares at a price of 3,777 denars, writes “Business Info”. In this way, Alta Banka AD Belgrade, together with affiliated persons, owns 19,439 ordinary shares, or 4.97% of the total number of ordinary shares issued by Stopanska Banka AD Bitola. Doesn’t seem very impressive, does it?”
As stated in the announcement published on the Macedonian Stock Exchange, which is reported by “Business Info”, “pursuant to Article 26-a, Paragraph 3 of the Law on the Takeover of Joint Stock Companies, we note that in addition to the consents required from domestic authorized authorities, bodies and institutions, including, but not limited to, the prior consent of the National Bank of the Republic of North Macedonia, the submission of the takeover offer is conditional upon prior approval of the acquisition by the National Bank of Serbia (“Foreign Approval”), and bear in mind that approval from the Commission for Protection of Competition of the Republic of Serbia has already been obtained”.
Namely, the new — conditionally speaking — owner will not have majority ownership in the bank, considering that the bank’s shareholders are a large number of natural and legal entities, with a relatively small number of shares.
Apart from the state, the SFRY (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) is among the main shareholders with 5.3 percent, given that the final division of assets among the former Yugoslav republics has still not been finalized. With slightly less than five percent of the shares, which is the limit above which permission from the NBS is required for ownership in banks, are the American company Tinolex, the telecommunications company Telegroup, and Alfaplam from Vranje, owned by businessman Miroljub Aleksić. He has been mentioned in the public for months, if not years, as an interested party in Jubmes Bank. A large portion of Jubmes shares are held in so-called custodial accounts in banks whose owners are hidden from the public, so it is possible that some of the bank’s well-known shareholders own larger shares through these accounts.
By the way, Aleksić, whose “Alko” Group includes around fifteen companies, including “Pionir” from Subotica, “Alfaplam” from Vranje, and several hotels, already has experience in banking, considering that he once founded “A Bank”, which he sold to Belgian “KBC Bank” in 2007 for nearly 100 million euros. Later, his name was also mentioned in the ownership of the failed banks “Univerzal” and “Privredna Banka Beograd”. In “Univerzal Banka”, he owned about three percent ownership and in “Privredna Banka Beograd” he was even fined by the National Bank of Serbia for exceeding the five percent ownership limit through his affiliated companies without approval, and was ordered to sell the excess shares.
“Jubmes” as the father of Alta Banka is a small bank that accounts for only 0.3 percent of the market in terms of assets, has just two branches and largely depends on work with the economy. Interestingly, the chairman of the Board of Directors of this bank, Zoran Lilić, is a former President of the FRY (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) from 1993 to 1997!
To make things clearer, the transition of the former Yugoslav Bank for Foreign Relations (Jubmes) into a private bank went through certain questionable transactions behind the scenes. First of all, let’s say in relation to Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the local government virtually gave away its shares in JUBMES to Serbia, as Smart Balkans writes, with an unconvincing justification — that Bosnia held a small number of shares (3.59%) and therefore could not influence the policy of the future bank – Alta. The sale was made at a price 4 times lower than the accounting one.
Serbia itself pushed for the sale of the former Yugoslav bank and its privatization, which practically led to a “market” solution to something that post-Yugoslav property agreements had failed to resolve, as Belgrade’s N1 writes. This happened after 2018. The last few years haven’t been particularly good for Alta Banka, as in 2017 and 2018 it recorded a profit of sixty million dinars, and in 2014 and 2015 a loss of a total of 2.4 billion dinars.
According to all reports, this year is slightly better, as a profit of 370 million dinars was reported for the first six months, which is six times more than in the same period last year.
Ahead of the privatization, the price of the bank’s shares on the stock exchange jumped by 30 percent in the past month, from 8,000 to 10,500 dinars, which is the highest price in the last three years. If the state were to sell its shares at this price, it would receive 7.27 million euros for them, according to media reports from Serbia.
The first summary is that a “frail” financial institution is being taken off the state’s back, Serbia is gaining through the transaction with Macedonia and for little money is getting a big profit (or something like that) due to surge in share price on the stock exchange.
The bank’s assets as of the end of June this year amounted to 126.3 million euros, and the bank’s capital was 32.5 million euros. Usually, there are restrictions regarding how much real estate a bank can own in relation to its “cash”, working capital, right?
Surprisingly, it had previously been announced on the Macedonian banking scene that our largest bank — Komercijalna — was interested in “adopting” Stopanska Banka Bitola! There was information about that from “Shirok Sokak” (Bitola’s main street), but even then with many caveats, so it turned out that the whole thing had turned out “regretful”. By someone. Did some secret deal between our and the Serbian government come to the fore here?
Those familiar with the situation are convinced that VMRO-DPMNE has finally got its own bank that guarantees secrecy in transactions, and they also have the Governor of the NBRM, who has authority in this area. So, all future loans (and a lot of them have been announced) will probably go through Bitola! Namely, during the implementation of the Hungarian loan of one billion euros after the elections, which everyone says is actually – Chinese, it became evident that our banks are a tough nut to crack and don’t want to be obedient and work without commission. Moreover, they don’t have to keep their tongues glued to their teeth! And so now, let’s assume, British pounds will likely fall under the veil of secrecy, but it will also not be known how much money will actually be tied to necessary investments in the country. Simply put — it’s different when the government considers at least one bank to be its own!
Otherwise, in the recent past, the Bitola-based Stopanska Banka was taken over by the Kamchev family and through it they gained serious economic capacities, especially in agriculture and the food industry. Kamchev, a would-be Bulgarian honorary consul in the country (which led to a clash between Prime Ministers Zaev and Borisov), at one point housed the “Vancho Mihajlov” association in his premises. This, of course, indicates that this 2022 event is relatively in the past, as the bank in Bitola is becoming one of the pillars of the Budapest–Belgrade–Skopje relationship.
Indeed, one of the latest reports was that Kristina Kamcheva Stojchevska, sister of Jordan Kamchev, had been nominated as a new member of the Supervisory Board of Stopanska Banka Bitola. Certainly, there will be serious personnel shifts. Other members of the Supervisory Board of Stopanska Banka Bitola include Mile Zechevik (!) who is the president, Aleksandra Radevska, Stevcho Jolakoski, Gordana Temelkovska Kostovska, Ivancho Veljanovski, Igor Kambovski. That list may soon become a thing of the past.
VMRO-DPMNE is not only attacking the judiciary, that is, the third branch of government, but also all those institutions that will enable it to have complete, unreserved rule in the country, but also ensure the viability of the new line, which virtually connects the blue Danube and the dirty Vardar.
Еxclusively for CIVIL MEDIA.
