However, now it is facing margin pressure due to aggressive local discounters like Spar," says Amman Patel, analyst at global investment research and analytics firm Aranca. "The margin pressure and high commodity prices, although a systematic issue, aggravate the problem for Agrokor due to its high leverage." Patel points out that declining ebitda made Agrokor's leverage "beyond manageable", pushing its ratio of net debt to trailing 12-month ebitda to above seven, compared to a typical ratio of three for the retail industry. Elsewhere in the Balkans, Delhaize is now the market leader in Serbia, with a small edge over Mercator according to Euromonitor data, while there is speculation that Lidl, which registered a Serbian entity back in 2010, could finally enter the market this year. In Bosnia, Mercator is now going head to head with local chain Bingo, which has benefited from funding from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).