Sugar factory in Virovitica is the youngest and the most modern sugar factory in Croatia. Construction of the factory started in 1976 and it was put into trial production in 1980 with a daily processing capacity of 4.000 tones of sugar beet. From the beginning of its work the factory has also been capable of processing alternative raw materials for sugar production, of which raw imported cane sugar is the most significant. From 1984 the factory functioned within the Virovitica Agroindustrial conglomerate, and in 1991, when the conglomerate ceased to operate, the factory became again an independent business entity.
Virovitica sugar factory found itself from its incorporation in an extremely challenging position due to administrative fixing of the sugar price and insufficient amount of raw materials, which is the reason why it was impossible to provide quality business operations and profit. The situation improved to some degree in the later 1980s by introducing the program of service processing of sugar beet from Hungary and by significant investment in sugar beet production. However, in the 1990s a large-scale import of sugar and uncontrolled illegal entry jeopardized domestic production and drastically reduced sugar prices, so that Croatian sugar factories were facing collapse.
Virovitica sugar factory was unable to continue in business in such a difficult economic situation. Novalić company of Osijek purchased the factory in 1998, and recently the factory was taken over by the Dutch company Cosun. Just one year later bankruptcy proceedings were initiated for the aggregate debt of the factory in the amount of more than 575 million kuna.
After restructuring of the factory and stoppage of negative trends in business operations, conditions were created to find strategic partners in the market whereby the factory could overcome its bankruptcy and continue its work. In July 2002 the companies EOS-Z in Zagreb and Robić in Velika Gorica purchased by a joint bid all the assets of Virovitica sugar factory in bankruptcy for the amount of 110 million kuna.
At the same time the limited liability company Viro was incorporated, to which the purchased assets of the factory were transferred. Viro started operations on September 5, 2002. |
