Ljubljana, April 14 - Slovenia's largest food retailer, Mercator, said on Friday it had signed a letter of intent to form a strategic partnership with Rodic M&B, one of the largest retailing groups in Serbia.
The companies plan to exchange shares to make Rodic an important shareholder of Mercator and Mercator an important shareholder of Rodic's retail unit.
"In the letter of intent, we specified all procedures according to which we will soon determine all elements of the strategic connection," Mercator said in a statement that gave no further details.
According to Mercator, Rodic targets net sales of about 370 million euros ($447.8 million) this year, while Mercator's net sales are seen at 2 billion euros.
Mercator said on Thursday it planned to increase its share capital by up to 50 percent to support possible strategic partnerships and expand in its markets abroad.
The company, which has branches in Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia, said it wanted to secure leading positions in markets outside Slovenia.
Mercator's market capitalisation currently amounts to some 147.6 billion Slovenian tolars ($745.5 million).
Shares in Mercator, Slovenia's third-largest firm by market capitalisation, fell 0.65 percent to 41,110 tolars on Friday while the blue-chip SBI 20 index gained 0.13 percent.