The majority stake is being sold by a consortium headed by financial holding Sava, the bank's largest single shareholder, which has been ordered to offload the bank and stripped of voting rights after it went into court-mandated debt restructuring.

AIK Banka entered ownership of Gorenjska banka with a EUR 12.37m capital injection in January 2016, acquiring a 13.9% stake and becoming the second-biggest owner.

It was cleared for a takeover of Gorenjska banka in February and has been buying shares on the market, unofficially at EUR 230-240 per share, according to the business daily Finance.

The daily Delo has reported that the lowest price at which the consortium was willing to sell was EUR 298, while the book value of Gorenjska banka's shares was EUR 565.

Apart from AIK Banka, the daily listed nine potential investors, among them telco Telekom Slovenije, reinsurer Sava Re, US funds Apollo and Advent, and the Russian Expobank.

Delo highlights Telekom Slovenije as the biggest surprise among the prospective investors. Telekom's foray into a field outside its basic activities is allowed by the 2016 strategy in which the state-owned telco announced an expansion into energy, insurance, financial services and healthcare.

Sava Re is reportedly interested in expanding into bank insurance, while the interest of Apollo and Advent also does not come as a surprise. They wish to increase their foothold in Slovenia after Apollo took over NKBM and Raiffeisen bank and Advent bought Hypo Alpe Adria bank.