For more information about AmCham please visit www.amcham.hr or call +385-1-4836-777

In the next nine months, INA and MOL must sell Crobenz, INA’s sister company, with 14 modern gas stations in nine counties at good locations and with excellent sales figures.

Crobenz must be sold as a whole (retail and wholesale), including all employees, to a buyer that has no personal or ownership relationship with INA and MOL. This would guarantee the continuation of the company’s success. In the next five years, Crobenz cannot be resold to INA and MOL. In the next two years, INA and MOL cannot build or lease gas stations on the existing motorway sections or new motorways under construction, unless Ina and Mol outlets are more than 30 km apart and there are competing retailer gas stations between them. These are the main structural measures of the Competition Protection Agency (AZTN) imposed upon INA and MOL, which are preconditions for the AZTN to give a positive decision upon their merger in Croatia, in order to reduce the existing INA and MOL market concentration by up to 5%, which is currently in retail 60% and in wholesale even greater. Since INA expected some restrictive measures, the decision on the Crobenz sale was not a surprise. According to some speculations, there was a possibility that the Agency would decide in favor of the sale of Tifon. However, since that did not occur, some are commenting that AZTN was actually very mild towards INA. According to Olgica Spevec, the Head of AZTN, the Agency decided to leave Tifon within the INA group, because it raised standards in the industry and competitiveness on the market, in turn raising consumer’s benefits. The sales decision could damage Tifon’s market position and reduce the positive influence the company has on the market. “Measures prescribed by AZTN are not to punish but to preserve and strengthen the competitive market structure and benefit the end consumer. This is why we had to be very careful and pragmatic. With the measures we cannot disturb the current market positions INA built during all of these years when it was also a monopolist on the market, and yet we have to limit its share but not to give it reason for an alibi to be used to shut down unprofitable companies.”