The company MLM (Mariborska livarna Maribor – the Maribor foundry) is close to insolvency and on the road to bankruptcy. The most serious buyer, the company Mutares, withdrew its takeover bid last week. Like another investor interested in MLM earlier this year, it wanted help from the state, which it did not get. It should be recalled that last year, before the possible sale of the company, the Minister of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, Luka Mesec, visited the state-owned company Mariborska Livarna and promised to present a “model” for a workers’ buy-out in the “coming months”. But after a year, no “model” has been presented yet, and instead, the company is headed towards bankruptcy. At that time, the sale fell through, and Mesec welcomed the Bank Assets Management Company’s decision to halt the sale process – “Instead of privatisation, a workers’ buy-out,” Mesec said at the time, and now the workers are left without both privatisation and a workers’ buy-out.
Mariborska livarna Maribor (MLM), once the largest industrial company in Maribor, recorded another loss last year – namely, of 3.6 million euros, on revenues of 43 million euros, which the owner – the company is 100% owned by the state through Slovenian Sovereign Holding (SDH) – covered by reducing the share capital at the June general meeting.
Davor Šenija, the President of the Management Board of MLM, is disappointed with the current attitude of the state owners towards the company. As he said, all 350 employees are still working as before, as the company still has enough business. He claimed that no bank account of the company has been closed so far. In the last year, MLM has signed nearly 150 million euros worth of nominations for new business until 2030, but the biggest problem has been the high rise in energy prices, Šenija said. It should be pointed out that the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS) proposed to the government that the VAT cut on energy products be extended, but the proposal, which would have helped both the economy and households, was rejected by the government of Robert Golob.
A failed attempt to save the company
“Today, I visited the Mariborska Livarna Maribor (MLM), where only 350 workers remain out of the 2,300 that once worked there. These 350 workers mean 350 people who support their families. Today, this company is being sold – sold by the Bank Assets Management Company (DUTB) and sold irresponsibly,” said Luka Mesec last June. At most, it was irresponsible to interfere in the sale, which Mesec calls privatisation, as if it were something bad, but it is the opposite, namely the withdrawal of bad policy from state-owned enterprises. During Mesec’s visit to the company, it emerged that on that very day, the Bank Assets Management Company confirmed that the sale process had been halted. Whether the Minister of Labour’s position also influenced the decision is not known, but he welcomed the halt.
Mesec promised at the time that he would talk with the Bank Assets Management Company and the government to freeze the sale and that he would come back in the coming months to present in more detail the options and the model under which a workers’ buy-out could take place. “A workers’ buy-out is my preference, because all experience from abroad shows that companies organised in this way are the most socially responsible, and workers are happier in them.” But so far, Mesec has not presented any model for a bailout, confirmed MLM trade unionist Drago Lešnik. “If you promise something, it’s only right to keep that promise,” he was critical of the minister.
Empty promises from the government
The difficult period in the Slovenian economy is not unexpected, as the Left party (Levica) has a clear programme that includes an attack on entrepreneurship, the dismantling of capitalism, and the introduction of the workers’ management of companies. Party members have also repeatedly threatened entrepreneurs with nationalisation while calling for capitalists to be driven into the sea with bayonets. They are also notorious for breaking their promises, from the aforementioned case of promising workers a buy-out to the promise of 30,000 new flats being built, saying that they have their shovels ready. The other coalition partners are no better. The Social Democrats party (Socialni demorkati – SD) promised us ’30 days to a specialist’ but instead, we got a crumbling healthcare service and, most recently, the Freedom Movement party (Gibanje svoboda) promised 100 replacement houses for flood victims, but instead, these victims are collecting donations on social media by themselves.
A. G.
