A Slovenian-British venture bought the bulk of the bankruptcy estate of the former Slovenian clothing giant Mura at auction in Murska Sobota accepting the opening bid of EUR 9.65m. A co-owner of AHA SKUPINA, Mojca Lukancic, said that talks were under way to keep the 1,563 employees currently working at Mura for at least five years or hopefully more.
Lukancic, who attended the auction together with the British partner and co-owner Nigel Peter Buxton, said the decision to buy Mura assets was hard but it also represented a challenge.
"On the one hand, we see the challenge in the expertise accumulated since 1925. We talk of expertise, the brand and the potential the Mura brand has in Slovenia, the region of the former Yugoslavia end elsewhere. "On the other hand there are challenges as we know Slovenia not to be a low labour-cost territory, which means steps will have to be taken to make Mura competitive not only on the account of labour force."
Lukancic expects the support of the employees, management and the broader community so that the company can succeed in increasing the value added and keeping as many of the staff for as long as possible.
The new owner is not considering changes in the management of Mura in partnerji, the healthy core that survived after Mura went into receivership two years ago and is operating in the black.
But Lukancic sees a lot of work ahead in terms of labels and design. "Together with the exiting management we have assessed that some extra staff will be needed, people from design, marketing, to launch this project more aggressively."
The general manager of Mura in partnerji Milan Moerec expressed satisfaction that the agony of the company's ownership was now over. He is confident the company got the right owner to continue revitalising the brand, international cooperation and preserving Mura.
The in-house union's representative Duzan Kueplen said that the workers were relieved too by getting a responsible owner, and that they hoped the promises would be carried out.
Official receiver Branko Djordjevic also praised the buyer as a company that understood the crisis as a challenge and an opportunity. He said the price of the bankruptcy estate was the highest ever in a receivership in Slovenia.
Apart from Mura in partnerji, the package auctioned off today included the Zagreb company Mura, trgovina in storitve, the brands Mura and e.mura, real estate in Murska Sobota and production and other equipment. Mura went into receivership in October 2009, as part of which around 2,500 lost their jobs. AHA Skupina is a holding of six companies employing some 700 workers which generated around EUR 64m in revenues in 2010. Mura was bought by the subsidiary AHA MODA, set up for the purpose.
Source: SLOVENIATIMES
