Croatia's biggest grocery chain by store count has asked for court protection, eight years after a private equity owner began a debt-funded expansion that tripled its network.

Studenac, Croatia's biggest grocery chain by number of shops, has asked a court for pre-bankruptcy protection after an eight-year debt-funded expansion from 384 stores to more than 1,400 left it struggling to pay suppliers.

The company said on September 24 that it expected the Commercial Court in Split to open proceedings within the statutory deadline, after its bank account was blocked, according to a statement carried by local media. It wants to restructure its debts with banks, suppliers and other creditors while its stores stay open.

Court documents cited by Jutarni List showed Studenac had 11 loans worth around €390mn and €60.6mn of overdue supplier bills on September 23, against €10.3mn in the bank.

A judge gave Studenac eight days to supplement its petition with evidence of the grounds for pre-bankruptcy, an inventory of assets and liabilities, financial statements less than three months old and a restructuring plan, Novi list reported on September 24.

The abrupt end of Croatia's most aggressive retail expansion story is the biggest test of the country's grocery sector since the collapse of food and retail giant Agrokor in 2017. Studenac is a fraction of that size, but with around 7,000 staff it is one of the country's larger private employers, and is now beset by rising wages, rents and fierce competition from German discounters.

"Filing a proposal to initiate pre-bankruptcy proceedings is a responsible and transparent step we are taking to ensure financial stability and the continuation and long-term sustainability of our business," the company said, as quoted by Jutarni List and other media outlets. As of publication time, Studenac had not responded to a request from IntelliNews for information.

Cash runs out

Studenac's petition shows its cash running out within weeks. The company forecast €76mn of payments due to suppliers over the next 30 days against projected revenue of €59mn, and said it needs about €13.5mn a month for salaries and €48.4mn to restock its shops. It also has a €6.37mn loan principal payment due on September 30, according to Novi list.

"It is unlikely the debtor will secure agreement from its senior lenders on refinancing in the foreseeable future," the petition says, warning that it would probably be unable to meet its obligations to suppliers and staff within 15 to 30 days.

In 2025, revenue rose 12.5% to €854.4mn, but Ebitda fell to €51.8mn from €65.8mn and the company swung to a net loss of €30.6mn from a loss of under €1mn a year earlier, Novi list reported on September 22. Staff costs jumped 19.6% and rents rose to €39.4mn from €32.3mn. Short-term liabilities of €529.4mn were more than three times current assets of €151.4mn, the auditor flagged a significant uncertainty over the company's ability to continue as a going concern and noted that Studenac had breached the financial covenants in its loan agreements.

Bank debt stood at €288.9mn at the end of 2025, with a further €160.5mn in loan liabilities, taking the total to around €450mn. Studenac had also failed to repay €28.5mn of a revolving credit line that fell due on September 7, Bloomberg Adria reported.

The company changed its finance chief nine days before the filing, replacing Michal Halwa, who had held the post for more than six years, with Mikolaj Chruszczewski on September 14, as reported by Lider.

Some suppliers have already stopped deliveries, and the chain has begun closing shops. "They closed several shops in Slavonia," Zlatica Stulic, president of the Croatian trade union, told tportal. Food and drinks group Atlantic Grupa said it was still doing business with Studenac in line with its contracts.

"There are mechanisms in place like pre-bankruptcy settlements," Economy Minister Ante Susnjar called the case a matter for a private company and arguing that a tight labour market could absorb any workers who lose their jobs, a government statement said on September 24.

From Dalmatia to every corner

Studenac was founded in Omis in 1991 by Josip Milavic as a family business and was a regional chain of 384 neighbourhood shops in Dalmatia with revenue of just over €200mn when Polish private equity fund Enterprise Investors bought it in 2018. The new owner promised to "accelerate the development of the network, participate in market consolidation and enhance the current stores' performance".

Through a string of acquisitions of smaller chains and organic openings, Studenac became Croatia's largest retailer by store count by early 2023, with 1,100 shops and a 7% market share, and set a target of a top-three position and more than 12% of the market. Its model was the small proximity store, typically 60 to 180 square metres, built for the daily top-up shop. In 2024 it crossed into Slovenia, its first foreign market. In October 2025 it opened a €10mn distribution centre in Velika Gorica near Zagreb, its largest infrastructure investment to date.

The plan was to fund the next leg on the stock market. In November 2024 Studenac launched an IPO in Warsaw and Zagreb to raise about €80mn in new shares, selling up to 35% of the company at a maximum retail price of €3.32 a share, with a target of 3,400 stores by the end of 2028. Part of the money was earmarked for cutting leverage. A week later the offer was pulled, with the company blaming "challenging conditions in the capital markets".

Instead of equity, Studenac took on more debt. In July 2025 it secured a €300mn financing package arranged by Poland's Bank Pekao to fund growth and refinance existing loans, reporting at the time that 2024 revenue had risen 22% to €816.5mn and adjusted Ebitda by 18% to €78mn. A month later the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) lent it €70mn as part of a €352.5mn investment programme covering acquisitions, store refurbishment and automation. An EBRD spokesperson declined to comment to IntelliNews on the situation.

A growing market with thinner margins

The wider market is still growing. Revenue at Croatia's 41 largest grocery retailers rose 6.2% to €8.9bn in 2025, according to the competition agency AZTN's annual market survey, slowing from 8.8% growth in 2024. The number of shops grew 1.5% to 5,347, and Studenac, with 1,487 outlets, had the biggest network by far.

By revenue, however, it ranked only sixth. Konzum, owned by Fortenova, the successor to Agrokor, led with a market share of 20% to 30% and 630 stores, while Germany's Schwarz Group, through Lidl and Kaufland, held a combined share in the same range. Lidl posted the largest revenue gain, of more than €100mn. Plodine, Spar, Kaufland, Studenac, Tommy, KTC, NTL and Trgovina Krk made up the rest of the top 10, which together took 87.7% of sales. Supermarkets generated 53% of revenue and grew fastest, by 7.6%.

Costs have risen faster than sales. Retail wages rose 10.4% in 2025 as labour shortages bit, the number of active retail companies fell 11.3% in the year, and consumer boycotts of several chains over prices earlier this year have made it harder to pass costs on. Food prices have now turned: while headline inflation reached 4.2% in August, food and non-alcoholic drinks were 0.6% cheaper than a year earlier, according to the statistics office.

Convenience and consolidation across the region

Neighbourhood convenience chains have been thriving across Southeast Europe as incomes rise and households shrink, and Poland's Zabka showed what investors will pay for scale when its PLN6.45bn (€1.5bn) IPO in October 2024 valued the 10,500-store chain at PLN21.5bn. However, when Studenac tried to follow a month later, it found the window shut.

At the same time the German discounters are pushing into the smaller Balkan markets and regional groups are reshaping their portfolios. Fortenova agreed on September 18 to sell its Serbian chain Idea Marketi to ALTA Retail to focus on euro-linked markets, and Serbia's Aman bought DIS in April to form the country's largest domestic chain.

Croatians have seen a retail empire built on debt fall before. Agrokor, which Croatian businessman Ivica Todoric grew from a flower business founded in 1976 into a food and retail group with around 60,000 staff across the region, including Konzum and Slovenia's Mercator, imploded in 2017 when its net debt climbed to more than seven times Ebitda and its Croatian suppliers were owed some HRK16bn.

The government rushed through a "Lex Agrokor" in April 2017, allowing it to install an emergency administrator at any company with more than €1bn in liabilities and over 5,000 employees. Creditors approved a debt-for-equity settlement in July 2018 that made Russia's Sberbank the largest shareholder, and the business was relaunched as Fortenova in April 2019. Todoric was extradited from London and still faces prosecution, with prosecutors filing a fresh indictment in July 2025. However, Studenac’s debts are a small fraction of Agrokor's, and the pre-bankruptcy route leaves the company, its owner and its banks to work out a deal in court.