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pervisory board had voiced some concerns over Mercator's investments in Croatia, the management had its eyes nonetheless firmly focused on the southern markets. Stealing the show But just two weeks ago, it was not Mr Debeljak, but Mercator's ex-CEO, Zoran Jankovic, who was in the media spotlight. The surprise reappearance of one of the country's most successful managers - and the recent recipient of the 2005 'Manager of the Year' award - on the business stage just four months after he was sacked by the new majority shareholders of Mercator certainly had a touch of commedia dell'arte about it. Not only did Mr Jankovic choose to unveil his plans to sell his 1.5 per cent stake in Mercator during a prime-time TV show, he skilfully used the opportunity to settle the score with his adversaries from the November meeting that concluded with his ousting from Mercator, Mr Igor Bavcar of Istrabenz and Mr Bosko Srot of Pivovarna Lasko. Istrabenz, Slovenia's largest food and drink producer, and Pivovarna Lasko, Slovenia's largest brewer, acquired a controlling stake in Mercator from two state-run funds in autumn last year, but only after they had apparently agreed to sack Mr Jankovic from the company's executive board. The government of Prime Minister Janez Jansa thus got rid of the last important CEO associated with Forum21, a group of influential managers and politicians presided over by the ex-president of Slovenia and the PM's intimate adversary Milan Kucan, while Istrabenz and Lasko got their controlling stake without having to pay a takeover premium. Of course, the parliamentary opposition immediately cried foul of the deal, claiming that taxpayers had in effect subsidized the takeover activities of both the food and drink giants - the latter having only paid the then current market price of SIT 38,000 (EUR 158.3) a share, robbing the taxpayers of a substantial takeover premium. Sweet revenge The point was nicely driven home by Mr Jankovic on the aforementioned TV show. As soon as it became clear that he was behind the rumours of a possible takeover of Mercator that fuelled the rise in Mercator's share price - in just a few days it rose from around SIT 38,000 (EUR 158.3) to SIT 43,000 (EUR 179.2) - he announced that he would be selling his stake to a certain fund from Cayman Islands, Altima Partners, who were offering SIT 41,000 (EUR 170.8) and used his air-time to advise other minority shareholders of Mercator to do the same. Although such a course of action might be labelled as market manipulation, Mr Jankovic nevertheless exacted revenge for his government-orchestrated downfall by providing the opposition with additional arguments in support of their claims that the government's stake in Mercator was sold for far less than its true value. Moreover, it is not very plausible to claim that the whole point of Altima's intervention was to drive up Mercator's share price - after all, the stated intention of the fund is to acquire a 24.99 per cent share in Mercator. It seems, therefore, that the managers of the fund - and Mr Jankovic as their advisor - expect that the share price will be even higher in the future, supposedly after a real takeover offer is made to Mercator's shareholders. Balkan boys At first, media reports speculated that Serbian capital was hiding behind Altima. The fact that Mr Miroslav Miskovic and his partner Mr Milan Beko, owners of the largest Serbian supermarket chain Delta, threatened to remove all Istrabenz and Lasko products from the shelves of their shops if the Slovenian companies did not allow them to acquire a stake in Mercator, only lent credibility to these claims. It has to be mentioned that under Jankovic, Mercator singled out Delta's supermarket chain C-market as the prime acquisition target and a pillar of its Serbian strategy; however, the planned merger of Mercator, Delta and Croatia's Agrokor and thus the creation of a Balkan-wide holding of the leading retailers in the region proved too much even for seasoned Balkan specialists like Mr Jankovic. However, rumours that Miskovic and Beko are trying to buy themselves into Mercator via Altima proved unfounded. While the public was focused on these two shady businessmen who had made their fortunes under ex-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, Mercator quietly negotiated with their main competitors in the Serbian market, the Rodic brothers. At the end of last week, the news finally broke that Rodic MB - it includes a supermarket chain and the biggest Serbian brewery - and Mercator had signed a letter of intent outlining their strategic partnership. The Rodic brothers will be allowed to take part in Mercator's upcoming capital raising scheme, while the Slovenian retailer will acquire a substantial holding in the Serbian group; this will not only dilute the shareholdings of troublemaker Altima, it will also allow Mercator to pursue its southern strategy with renewed vigour and ambition.