Although Mostar’s ‘Soko’ has long since closed its production doors even to this day it is making good money from the sale of its assets, and the assets of the company that once employed 8,000 workers (including plants in Čitluk, Grude, Ljubuški and Nevesinje).
In the small privatization of Soko by 2003, 19 people bought 33 per cent of the company with the obligation to hire 138 new workers and invest about 800,000 euros, which never happened. The second wing and both legs, which ended it, Soko lost in major privatization three years later, when the remaining 67 per cent of the capital of the “Soko” military unit was sold.
The majority shareholder of the stumbled industry is Ante Vidačak’s company Promark d.o.o, extremely close to HDZ BiH, a party whose president Dragan Čović was the head of Soko. Promark, which regularly receives jobs from HDZ directors, has been increasing its stake in Soko Aviation for years.
Today, according to the stock market, he owns 44 per cent of the total number of Soko issued shares, and it seems that his core business is the sale of the property to state-owned companies.
At least three directors of public companies bought the former Soko property, now owned by Elektroprivreda HZ HB, headed by director Marinko Gilja, Elektroprijenos, led by Matan Žarić, and the Direct and Indirect Taxation Authority, headed by Miro Đakul. It is hard to believe that the property of the former Soko caught the eye of all of them by chance.Matan Žarić (Elektropreprenos BiH – HDZ BiH) announced a tender for the purchase of land in Rodoč in 2015.
In the public invitation, he is looking for a parcel of 4,000 square meters, it must be in a narrower area of the City, it must be located along the main road on at least the whole of one side!? It must also have the possibility of building a multi-storey building G1+P+3.
It could be said that they already know which land they are buying. In the new 2022, the land lies unused, because the possibility of construction at the time of purchase is questionable, but more on that later.
Apart from Elektroprijenos and Matan Žarić, Soko aviation, to which the majority owner, Ante Vidačak’s company, sold land and halls to other HDZ directors.
One of the abandoned Soko halls was sold to the Stanić group, for the Stanić group to sell them to Elektroprivreda HZ HB. Directly or indirectly, Soko’s property ends up as the property of public companies, which redirects public money to the desired flows.