After the huge business with state enterprises, EPS and Parking service, Alta banka Davora Macura has other ambitious plans for business expansion
Alta banka does not stop at the big job they got new cooperation with Elektroprivreda Srbije and other enterprises under the state cap or influence.
Its director Davor Matsura, about whom "Vreme" wrote in detail, also has new plans.
"Alta banka also has big plans when it comes to investment banking. Last year, this bank established a brokerage department and became a member of the Belgrade Stock Exchange, and it also plans to establish a custody department that would support the trading of securities abroad," Nenad Gujaničić, chief broker of the Momentum broker-dealer company, told Vreme.
This bank, adds Gujaničić, could also be active in the field of establishing and managing investment funds, where Intesa and Raiffeisen banka dominate now.
"Certainly the bank is acting quite ambitiously, especially considering that it is still a relatively small bank by all financial indicators," says the broker.
And on Alta Bank's website, there is a notice that they have a license to provide investment services and provide mediation services in the trading of financial instruments.
"Brokerage services are intended for small and professional investors who are interested in investing in financial instruments that are traded on regulated markets and outside the regulated market," they add on the website in the description of broker-dealer operations.
A little help from the state
Alta banka is actually the former Jubmes bank that Matsura took over in 2019 by buying a controlling stake from the state. It is a former Yugoslav bank that supported exporters on the international market and did not have the organizational structure of a classic commercial bank in the country.
"In the deal with the purchase of the first package of shares, Macura paid about 28,5 dinars per share for 7.200 percent of the state's shares, which was slightly more than half of the book value of the bank," recalls Gujaničić. "Given the extremely weak position of the minority shareholders on the Belgrade Stock Exchange, they did not even get this price, but were paid an average of around 4.000 dinars per share, while the last shareholders were forced out at a price of 3.754 dinars per share."
On the other hand, when Matsura wanted to expand to the European Union market and take over 20 percent of Adiko Bank, the controlling financial institutions of the EU were not as lenient as Serbia. The European Central Bank found that they violated takeover laws and banned the entire procedure.
"It was hard to believe that such a small bank could take over Adiko," says Gujaničić. "In order to achieve that goal, the team around Alta Bank also used some illegal means, such as the secret purchase of shares among related parties, which are tacitly approved in Serbia. They did not succeed there."
Davor Macura's lucrative jobs
Many have heard of Davor Matsura only recently when found out that the citizens of Belgrade will pay for electricity on the account of his Alta Bank, in contrast to the earlier account of the state treasury.
The Auto-Moto Association of Serbia and the Parking Service of Belgrade entrusted the work to Alta Bank. At the beginning of November 2023, this bank concluded a strategic partnership agreement with EPS and then became an intermediary in the electronic payment of electricity bills on the website of the public company, as well as in the "Insight into the account" application. In the summer of 2024, the company, led by Macura, won a tender for financial services for the collection of transportation in Belgrade.
The Alta Group also received incentives from the state for the construction, reconstruction and expansion of a hotel in Belgrade for the needs of the EXPO 2027 exhibition, and the bank's counters are also located in police stations.
Macura is the owner of Alta Pay Group and the chairman of the Board of Directors of Alta banka, and there are 15 companies in Serbia. His business grew very quickly since the Serbian Progressive Party was in power, and the best example of this is Alta Banka, which in 2023 achieved even 22 times greater growth than in 2022.
According to BIRN's research, Macura, through his company "Danica Park", was the owner of two plots that are now owned by Nikola Petrović, the godfather of Aleksandar Vučić. They also wrote that the same company was the investor of buildings that are still being built on the land of Zvonko Veselinović's wife and on the land of Milan Radojičić and his wife Emma.
Another person in the bank approved the plagiarism of Jorgovanka Tabaković
Professor Aleksandar Živković, a member of the Board of Directors of Alta Bank, on whose account 800.000 households in Belgrade will pay their electricity bills in the future, has direct connections with the governor of the National Bank of Serbia, Jorgovanka Tabaković. "Vreme" revealed.
He was in the defense committee of her doctoral thesis. At least 20 percent of this PhD is plagiarism, established in 2016 by the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia (CINS).
The governor has a doctorate. defended in 2011 at the private Faculty of Service Business, Educons University from Sremska Kamenica. Educons delayed sending a copy of the dissertation to CINS for two years.
Professor Živković had direct dealings with the governor again - when she had to approve his appointment to the Board of Directors of Alta banka.
Because, according to the Serbian Law on Banks, the approval for the appointment or dismissal of the board of directors of any bank is signed by the governor of the NBS himself.
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