Grega Erman, the receiver of construction company Imos-G, which wanted to build a residential and business area with nine skyscrapers on the site before going bust, the creditors opened the bids on Tuesday and negotiations will commence, but the final result will probably not be revealed before the end of April.

A total of 15 bids were submitted, but only four were for the entire complex on 49 plots, as Imos-G would prefer.

Erman would only reveal that the highest bidder was a German company that offered EUR 17m for the complex.

But the daily cited unofficial information in naming the bidder as VG Dienstleistungen UG, which would like to build a student campus where Imos-G planned around 600 apartments, commercial buildings and a hotel.

The second-highest bidder, according to Finance, is Scottish company Hunter Hayes, which offered EUR 14m.

However, Finance's unofficial sources say the creditors are not ready to go below EUR 25m, so even this latest attempt may not succeed.

The two previous attempts to auction off the property, valued by the Surveying and Mapping Authority at EUR 22.5m, failed as the starting price was set at EUR 33.2m and EUR 32.3m.

The former complex of the Ljubljana cigarette factory just west of the city centre, which was once a city within a city, now hosts a plethora of diverse activities in the old industrial buildings, from a cultural centre to the central administrative unit for the capital and even co-working office spaces.