Mlekoprodukt D.O.O. Zrenjanin (Serbia)

"Mlekoprodukt" from Zrenjanin, established in 1947, produces wide range of dairy products, including fresh milk, fermented dairy products (yoghurt, sour cream), butter, cheese and processed cheese. The company's main products are cheese spreads, hard cheese (Selam sheep milk hard cheese and Gruyere) and semihard cheese (Trapist, Gouda, Edam and Kashkaval). Mlekoproduct is ranked fifth within the branch and shares 5% in the domestic market. The main export markets are Macedonia and Republic of Srpska.
French dairy group Bongrain SA acquired a 50.5% majority stake in Mlekoprodukt dairy for EUR 4.1mn. The transaction took place through a new issue of 130,000 shares, subscribed entirely by the French company. Bongrain will pay additional 1.0 mln euro ($1.3 mln) for the acquisition of Mlekoprodukt shares from the Serbian Fund for Pension and Disability Insurance. The minority shareholders in the dairy, mostly former and current employees, also have the option to sell their stakes to the new majority stockholder over the next three years. Before the capital increase, 1,500 small shareholders had an 80 pct stake in Mlekoprodukt. Current and former employees comprised 1,000 of the small shareholders.
The French company will invest in the expansion and improvement of production of fresh milk, as well as milk products, with an emphasis on the cheese program. In this way, by 2007, the annual production will reach 34 million liters of milk or about 10 million liters more than until now. Bongrain is going to become the third major player on the dairy market, after Salford (UK) and Lura (Croatia).