January the 26th, 2023 - The Croatian shipbuilding industry has been unstable for several years now, but Brodotrogir Cruise has confidently stated that the company hopes to fully secure contracted work for both this year and next year soon.

As Marija Brnic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, state guarantees for shipbuilding are increasingly rare items on the table at government sessions, and the first one this year was approved for Danko Koncar's Trogir shipyard.

After restructuring with state support and then new settlement processes through pre-bankruptcy procedures, shipbuilding on the Trogir peninsula now takes place through the company Brodotrogir Cruise, but in a significantly reduced scope and within an even more significantly altered market niche.

The former trend of the construction of large chemical tankers, which dominated the entire Trogir area, has been replaced by the construction of small cruisers, yachts and workboats for fishing. This is how the new guarantee of the Ministry of Finance was issued for the second phase of the started construction, a fishing boat for Norwegian clients.

The state has already followed Brodotrogir's cooperation with the Norwegian Moen Marina with a guarantee issued back at the end of 2021, for one vessel (Nov. 369) and the construction of the hull for the other (Nov. 370), and these two contracted constructions have now been completed, and the equipment guarantee has been approved for the second ship (Nov. 370), for which the hull was built back during the first phase.

For the completion of construction, the Croatian Government approved a guarantee of four million euros, which is 80 percent of the entire value of the contracted work. The condition for the implementation of this state guarantee is, among other things, the return of the guarantee for the loan from HBOR, which was previously issued to Brodotrogir for the first phase of that project, more specifically for the construction of the hull, which amounted to 0.5 million euros.

Brodotrogir, unlike the much larger shipyards located in Split, Rijeka and Pula, is undergoing a new phase of recovery more quickly and quietly, and that, at least according to Brodotrogir Cruise Board member Mateo Tramontana, exclusively thanks to its own resources.

"Our companies went through a pre-bankruptcy settlement, and everything coincided with the coronavirus pandemic that hit our business hard. The main problem was that we lost jobs, but we had no loans and obligations, we sold a marina and two tankers, and made the decision to preserve the backbone of the shipyard and, in simple terms, to cover ourselves for as long as we could,'' explained Tramontana.

The lack of jobs is also visible in the financial results for the pandemic-dominated year of 2021, in which the shipyard experienced a large drop in revenue, which fell to a mere 17 million kuna, and a serious loss of 10.6 million kuna was also recorded.

However, Tramontana noted that at the end of that year alone, their business situation began to improve, and in the last year, according to him, twice as much income was achieved and the year ended with a profit of around two million kuna. Brodotrogir's manager is convinced that 2023 will be a much more successful business year.

In the order book, Brodotrogir Cruise already has five service ships scheduled for the Norwegians, one yacht for a Croatian company whose founder is from Switzerland, another yacht for a Croatian client and several more constructions in their more advanced stages of contracting.

"Over the next month or two, we'll have secured jobs for the whole of 2023 and 2024," Tramontana pointed out, for whom the big change in business is the fact that the company has been managing to secure financing for the majority of new jobs itself, without needing to rely on state guarantees.

Brodotrogir Cruise otherwise currently employs 150 workers and cooperates with around 15 subcontractors.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated business section.

April the 20th, 2021 - The Croatian shipyard scene hasn't been producing much in the way of positive news for a significant amount of time now, and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the economic woes it brings with it haven't aided the situation. Fina is now proposing bankruptcy for the Brodotrogir shipyard.

As Suzana Varosanec/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, just one month after the recent promising messages related to the Brodotrogir shipyard, which were important to the whole group due to the announcement of negotiations with bankers and the sale of the marina there to save business operations, as well as the survival of the parent company, there has unfortunately been a reversal.

To be more precise, the Financial Agency (Fina) filed a motion with the competent commercial court to open bankruptcy proceedings for the debtor of the Brodotrogir shipyard.

As stated in the proposal, back on April the 16th, this debtor in the register has recorded unexecuted bases for payment in an uninterrupted period of 137 days, in the total amount of 3.895 million kuna, which includes interest and fees due to Fina for the implementation of foreclosures on cash. According to the data held on the number of employees submitted to the Financial Agency by the Croatian Pension Insurance Institute, the Brodotrogir shipyard has 51 employees. It remains to be seen what developments will follow in this somewhat complicated case, given the previous and current announcements as well as the not-so-rare practice of settling debts that are the reason for the account blockade in the first place.

The Brodotrogir shipyard published losses of 305 million kuna back in pre-pandemic 2019, of which about 72 million kuna was covered from retained earnings, but the rest of the approximately 233 million kuna was transferred to the position of carried forward loss. These losses were mostly, at least according to official business documentation, due to reduced business activities when compared to previous years and also due to increased expenses, among other things, owing to the impairment of fixed assets and investments in subsidiaries, as well as value adjustments of unsecured receivables of the debtors who have faced financial problems, bankruptcy or late payments for more than one year.

In the pre-bankruptcy proceedings of this debtor which were opened approximately two years ago at the Commercial Court in Split, the Brodotrogir shipyard was released from its then cumbersome financial blockade and continued its regular business operations, with the established liabilities at the beginning of July 2019 amounting to around 319 million kuna in total, of which the largest amount - 214 million kuna, was determined according to unsecured creditors.

In addition to the above, according to the auditor's report, there are also debt obligations on loans from SCT, Kairos Shipping LLC I and Kairos Shipping LLC II. According to the notes, by the end of that year, the company had issued a large number of promissory notes in favour of the banks and the Ministry of Finance in the amount of approximately 1.6 billion kuna, guaranteeing the debts of the companies within the Brodotrogir Group and other affiliated companies amounting to about 423 million kuna back on the 31st of December, 2019. In addition, the settlement reached was overturned on the basis of a lodged appeal.

The Brodotrogir shipyard, an umbrella company 95 percent owned by Kermas Energija, manages the shipbuilding company Hrvatska brodogradnja Trogir, the company Brodotrogir Cruise, which builds cruisers, and BT Hull, which equips ships. Brodotrogir Cruise, according to sources from the group itself, took over some of the workers of HBT and BT Hull.

For more, make sure to follow our dedicated business section.

ZAGREB, September 4, 2020 - About 20 workers of B.T.HULL, which operates as part of the Brodotrogir group, demonstrated outside the shipyard in Trogir on Friday, demanding their wages, after which management offered that they work for Brodotrogir Cruise.

Workers told reporters they wanted to work and that if there was no work, for the shipyard to file for bankruptcy so that they would get severance packages.

After meeting with workers' representatives, Brodotrogir director Mateo Tramontana said workers did not receive the past two monthly wages, and that today they would receive compensation from the agency for the protection of workers' receivables for June and next week for July.

He said 54 workers were asked to come to work for Brodotrogir Cruise given that B.T.HULL had no work.

Unionist Sinisa Kosic said B.T.HULL workers did not have a collective agreement, that their wages were significantly slashed so they would have smaller claims in case of bankruptcy.

He said the Metalworkers Union asked that workers, about 80, receive a minimum pay of HRK 3,250 from the agency for the protection of workers' receivables and that the first amount would be paid today.

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ZAGREB, April 4, 2019 - The Commercial Court in Split on Wednesday opened a pre-bankruptcy procedure over the Brodotrogir shipyard and appointed Zdravko Tešić a trustee in bankruptcy.

The court called on creditors to submit their claims to the relevant Financial Agency (FINA) within 21 days while a hearing at which claims will be examined is scheduled for 10 July.

Brodotrogir proposed the opening of the pre-bankruptcy procedure on March 8, but the Court requested additional documents as the restructuring plan was not included.

The Trogir-based dock has been owned by Danko Končar for the past five years. The shipyard was restructured, but it was having a hard time landing contracts that would bring in income and secure workers' wages. Wages were late, incentives were being reduced, suppliers were not being paid, sub-contractors either, and there was growing concern that workers will become redundant and laid off with severance pay.

At the end of February, total claims towards Brodotrogir amounted to 187.4 million kuna.

Economy Minister Darko Horvat said on Thursday he was concerned about Brodotrogir d.d. after pre-bankruptcy proceedings had been launched for that Trogir-based company on Wednesday.

The minister said he was worried about every company in pre-bankruptcy procedure, including Brodotrogir d.d. The pre-bankruptcy procedure was approved by the Split Commercial Court on Wednesday after the application for pre-bankruptcy was amended with a proposed restructuring plan for the company.

More news about Croatian shipbuilding industry can be found in the Business section.

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