Last week, the Irish city of Cork, known also as the headquarters of multinational corporations like Apple, Amazon, IBM, etc., hosted the Annual congress of the European Business Angel Network (EBAN), this time around under the title 'Reconnect, Reimagine, Reinvest'. In just two days, more than 330 prominent participants attended the biggest international event of business angels in Europe. After two years, the Congress again took place with direct participation and in light of reconnecting the investors, business angels, and entrepreneurs with new initiatives and projects. The participants attended various workshops, listened to renowned speakers, as well as the pitching presentations of projects and ideas of businesses seeking start-up capital.

Monaco is currently hosting the prestigious international financial forum called "IMpower - Incorporating FundForum", organized by Informaconnect, where numerous decision-makers and highest representatives of institutional investors, funds, asset managers, financial experts etc. are discussing the situation in the global investment market.

Ghent, Belgium, hosted a meeting of the Executive Board of the World Federation of Investors (WFI) last week where they discussed the reports and activities of individual national members, the impact of listing new securities, the role of financial intermediaries in the CSD on EU level, educating investors, the progress made in the democratization process of shareholding and the case of Sweden's amazing growth of individual shareholding (3 million new securities 'savings' accounts), the evolution of cryptocurrencies, the legal actions and settlements in the case of Volkswagen, and the preparations for the General Assembly of this major and influential international organization that goes back more than 50 years. As a member of the Executive Board of the WFI, the President of VZMD, Mr. Kristjan Verbič also attended the meeting. He arrived at Ghent a day earlier to show up for the evening reception and dinner that was held at the La Concorde private club by Dr. Jean-Pierre Paelinck, the President and the Secretary General of the WFI.

VZMD directed a further protest to the Securities Market Agency (ATVP) against the inadmissible regulatory pressure and pretend ignorance of the ATVP director. This is a response to the ATVP director Anka Čadež's letter from January with which she responded to the previous open call and protest of VZMD against the harsh and inadmissible pressure on the civil society organization of minority shareholders. After carefully examining the director's response, VZMD reached the conclusion that as far as the key question is concerned – the problematic actions of the Slovene financial market intermediaries – her response was entirely vague and did not provide any specific explanation whatsoever; as far as her specific explanations are concerned, i.e. regarding the ATVP actions against VZMD, they have been, unfortunately, misleading and explicitly inconsistent with the actual situation.

After the Registry court entered the decision to squeeze out the Mercator minority shareholders into the court register (VIDEO: undefined), VZMD has already filed a motion to stay the proceedings, as well as the appeal at the District Court in Ljubljana. Namely, VZMD is challenging the decision – reached by the majority shareholder FORTENOVA GRUPA, d.d. (90.005%) for itself – at the Court; consequently, the decision could not be entered into the court register until the Court of First Instance reached a decision regarding the so-called breaking of the registry lock. Upon Mercator's proposal, the Court of First Instance weighed on whether the entry applicant would incur damages due to the registry lock, the significance of the lodged appeals on the rights of the minority shareholders, and the probability of a successful outcome of the plaintiffs' legal actions. "In her decision, the judge Melita Štefančič completely ignored the Council Regulation (EU) 2022/428 of 15 March 2022, which prohibits direct and indirect participation in any transaction for the benefit of the companies under direct or indirect control of the Russian state which is, in this case, incontrovertible," pointed out the VZMD President, Mr. Kristjan Verbič.

According to the Croatian media reports, the Russian, predominantly state bank SBERBANK has increased its equity interest in FORTENOVA GRUPA, d.d., to 44 %, and together with the other Russian, predominantly state bank VTB (7,5 % share) now owns more than half of the company. The Russian banks, majority owned by the Russian Federation, therefore control one of the largest corporations in southeastern Europe, whose major part is also MERCATOR, d.d. And in this company, FORTENOVA GRUPA has reached a decision to squeeze out the minority shareholders which has just been entered into the commercial register, even after VZMD requested a temporary injunction order.

VZMD President Mr. Kristjan Verbič addressed the CEO of ATVP, Ms Anka Čadež, with an open Objection against inadmissible regulatory pressure on organized representation of minority shareholders. With it he reasonably warns that since the last couple of years the Association has been dealing with unjustifiable pressure by ATVP, which is deliberately making the accomplishment of our mission (bringing together individuals and groups of citizens) difficult and ever increasingly impossible. "This is a paradox, since the care for the rights and interests of the most vulnerable groups of participants in the financial market – the minority shareholders – is supposed to be the purpose for existence not only of minority shareholder associations, but of the ATVP itself. We do not need ATVP to protect tycoons and financial intermediaries, we need it as a protection from tycoons and financial intermediaries," Mr. Verbič emphasized in his letter.

VZMD.tv is publishing a video (VIDEO: https://youtu.be/xI0TIG3oFL8) of a particularly topical round table "Digital Transformation and Cybersecurity in Businesses" from the International Investor Conference which took place mid September in Bled, Slovenia and was organized by the Pan-Slovenian Investors\' & Shareholders\' Association (VZMD) and the European Federation of Investors and Financial Services Users (BETTER FINANCE).

Lately, there have been many shareholders in public limited companies turning to VZMD and stating that they have received various letters and very strange offers from IGOR ŠTEMBERGER, the CEO and owner of ILIRIKA borzno-posredniška družba, d.d. (brokerage company). In certain cases the offered prices for shares were extremely low, in others they offer shareholders shares of the company ILIRIKA MOJA ZVEZDA, d.d., in exchange for their existing shares, and in some they even give two separate offers – either a purchase price or an exchange of stocks. VZMD did not notice that ILIRIKA d.d., which should be taking care of the interests of their own clients, warned them that an "exchange" of shares represents a divestiture of old and an acquisition of new shares, which can have, among other things, very negative tax consequences for the shareholders at their next sale!

After the squeeze-out meeting of the company MERCATOR, d.d., was canceled and reconvened, VZMD again sent the company a counter proposal, which proposes that in the event of a squeeze out of 1,277 minority shareholders they receive a monetary compensation in the amount of €204.33 per share, instead of the measly €36.00 as suggested by the majority shareholder – the company FORTENOVA GRUPA, d.d. This time VZMD is suggesting an even higher monetary compensation than in the previous counter proposal (€145.25 per share), since in the meantime the Association received additional justifications and analyses, all of them reflecting the necessity to additionally increase the amount of monetary compensation to at least €204.33 per individual share of Mercator.

For the urgent meeting of MERCATOR, d.d. that is to take place on December 6 2021, VZMD submitted a Counter proposal to the squeeze-out/expulsion proposal of minority shareholders. While FORTENOVA GRUPA, d.d., the majority shareholder who proposed the squeeze-out, proposed through a single substantive item on the agenda that 1,276 minority shareholders receive no more than €36.00 per share or a total of €22,365,036.00, VZMD is submitting a counter-proposal to demand a remuneration in total amount of €90,236,707.75 (€145.25 per share), using the amount that AGROKOR itself had estimated to €878.6 million as the mean value of MERCATOR.

VZMD.tv shared a video (link: https://youtu.be/zmlJp4y97KA) of the highly interesting and thematic round table entitled "Pension Savings Panel: The State of Pension savings in Europe" which took place at the International Investors' Conference organized by the VZMD and European Federation of Investors and Financial Services Users (BETTER FINANCE) in mid September at Bled, Slovenia.