Building companies Tehnika and Institute IGH, members of Croatian consortium for construction of the highway in Montenegro, announced today (February 25, 2010) on the Zagreb Stock Exchange that UniCredit Group had not approved banking guarantees for their job in Montenegro.

In the separated reports submitted to the Zagreb Stock Exchange, both companies wrote that they can not guarantee that the deal would be either made or broken. They pointed out that the negotiations on financial documentation were still underway.

Salvation is expected from Erste Bank, in which, according to web portal seebiz.eu, Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor and her Montenegrin counterpart allegedly lobby for the guarantees that have to be submitted to Montenegro until tomorrow.

Croatian Financial Services Supervisory Agency (Hanfa) and Zagreb Stock Exchange asked Tehnika and IGH today to reveal the truth about media announcements concerning banking guarantees for the Bar-Boljare highway project in Montenegro.

The third member of the consortium - Konstruktor-inženjering, is not on the Stock Exchange, so that it is not asked to provide any explanation.

Montenegrin Government has already started negotiating with the second-ranked bidder on the tender - Greek-Israeli consortium Aktor HCC, of which bid was 1bn EUR higher than the offer of Croatian consortium.

Croatian consortium estimated the value of aforementioned highway at 2.77bn EUR, 1.74bn EUR of which would be provided by Montenegro.