There is no concerted action or agreement with the purpose of takeover, Novoselec said at a news conference in Zagreb on Tuesday at which he represented the results of the work of the pension funds.
The only motive is our assessment that this is a good investment, he said adding that pension funds have been investing in the shares of the INA oil and gas company for years.
What we have done was exclusively in the interest of our members, being guided by our own assessment of opportunities for investments and we will keep doing that, he said.
Asked by reporters whether it was odd that a large-scale purchase of INA shares started after Hungary's MOL proposed its offer to small-shareholders, Novoselec said he did not see anything strange in it.
"No, we are buying (shares) all the time, (...) As much as the market offers, we buy as much as we can on the market," he said.
On 16 December, pension funds said in a statement they were buying shares of the Croatian oil company INA exclusively based on their own assessment and in the interest of their members.
Earlier, MOL, which together with the Croatian government holds a majority stake in INA, recently offered to buy shares held by the small shareholders in the Croatian company.
According to figures released by the Central Depository and Clearing Company (SKDD) on 27 December, the AZ mandatory pension fund holds 148,531 shares in INA or 1.49 percent of the entire stock, which is why it is the third largest stock-holder.
The Raiffaisen mandatory pension fund with 80,000 shares (0.80 percent) is the fourth largest share-holder and the PBZ Croatia Osiguranje mandatory pension fund follows with 46,394 shares or 0.46 percent, and the Erste Plavi mandatory pension fund ranks sixth with 45,872 shares in INA.
INA's stock capital is divided into 10 million shares. MOL holds 4,715,538 shares (47.16 percent) and the Croatian government 4,483,552 shares (44.84 percent).