The subsidiary of the Mariborska livarna Maribor (MLM) foundry was sold for EUR 155,000, although initially its price was set at EUR 4.25m.

The new owner has already made the transaction, with almost all of the money going to the Bank Asset Management Company (BAMC), which took over EUR 13.8m of claims to the Abanka bank.

Armal was first offered at an auction in early 2016, with the price set at EUR 4.25m. In the second attempt, the court ordered collecting non-binding bids, but the only bid was for half a million euro.

However, when the company was offered at this price in the third auction in late 2016 , the auction failed again.

The Maribor court then decided to carry out an open-outcry descending-price auction, with the asking price again set at half a million euro. BAMC agreed.

The price was lowered to EUR 215,000, but there was still no interest.

The Armal brand is known foremost in the area of the former Yugoslavia, in Eastern Europe, and partly in the EU as well.

The company entered receivership in April 2013, when it employed 16 people.

Nord produkt is a privately-owned company from Samobor. It started as a wholesaler of bathroom equipment but later started its own production.

Now it sells its equipment to hotels, camps and other facilities, including in Slovenia. Its staff doubled to more than 200 people in the last couple of years.