Slovenia gets several bids for bank NKBM - state fund

Telekom Slovenije, D.d

09/10/2014 14:05

LJUBLJANA, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Slovenia has received several 
binding bids for 100 percent of the country's second-largest 
bank, state-owned Nova KBM (NKBM), the state investment fund 
coordinating the privatisation said on Thursday. 
    The SDH fund also told Reuters the privatisation of the 
country's largest telecoms operator Telekom  TLSG.LJ  is going 
ahead, after it got "clear support" from the new centre-left 
government which was sworn in last month. 
    SDH did not say how many bids it received for NKBM, nor 
their value, but local media reported in September that 
Hungarian bank OTP  OTPB.BU  sent in the highest non-binding bid 
earlier this year, offering 300 million euros.  ID:nL6N0RV143  
    "OTP continuously monitors acquisition opportunities ... but 
does not comment on concrete issues," it said on Thursday. 
    SDH said in a statement that it would assess the bids for 
NKBM and decide in the next days how to proceed. 
    Central bank governor Bostjan Jazbec told Reuters last week 
that he expected NKBM, which is one of the banks that was 
rescued by the government in December, would be sold by the end 
of the year.  ID:nL6N0RV3CP  
    NKBM and Telekom are among 15 firms that were slated for 
privatisation last year. So far 3 of those firms have been sold. 
    Slovenia has been reluctant to sell its main companies, 
banks and insurers over the past decades, so the government 
still controls about half of the economy. 
    The country narrowly avoided an international bailout in 
December when the government had to pump more than 3 billion 
euros into local banks, which are mostly state-owned, in order 
to prevent them from collapsing under a large amount of bad 
loans given to local companies in the previous years. 
 
 (Reporting by Marja Novak; Additional reporting by Sandor Peto 
in Budapest; Editing by Mark Potter) 
 ((Marja.Novak@thomsonreuters.com; +386-8-205-6369; Reuters 
Messaging: marja.novak.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)) 
 
Keywords: SLOVENIA PRIVATISATION/