Fresh&Co

completed

Fresh&Co is a producer of packaged fruit juices for the Yugoslav and regional market. It processes local fruits into purees and packages a range of juices based upon local and imported raw and packaging materials. The project will finance: (i) remodelling of Fresh&Co’s factory , (ii) glass packaging line, trucks and refrigerators to support the company''s move into glass bottled juice, (iii) investment in permanent working capital,and (iv) replacement of expensive short-term and medium term debt.The private sector in Yugoslavia, mainly small and medium enterprises, is small and severely constrained by over-regulation in a playing field still tilted towards the larger, socially owned companies. By supporting a successful medium-size private enterprise, the project will help develop the Yugoslav private sector which is struggling to emerge from the old system still dominated by inefficient state- and socially-owned companies. The project will help increase the processing and value added production of Yugoslavia''s agricultural sector and support the Yugoslav fruit farmers, to whom the company provides technical assistance and working capital for critical inputs.The project will be the first IFC investment in the manufacturing sector in Yugoslavia. IFC’s participation in the project will provide much needed term finance in a market where there is yet no access to long term capital and short-term debt is prohibitively expensive. Transparency and corporate governance are expected to be major issues associated with foreign investment in Yugoslavia. IFC has already advised Fresh&Co on corporate restructuring aimed at improving transparency and corporate governance and will provide further technical assistance, supported by trust funds from the Swedish International Development Agency, to strengthen the company’s cost controls, MIS and corporate governance. By assisting the company in this pilot endeavor, the project will set a best-practice model which could be replicated by other Yugoslav companies as they become privatized.