Alfi, which owns several companies in western Slovenia, confirmed having submitted the bid with Deutsche Bank for the the business newspaper Finance and web news portal Siol.

According to Finance, the joint bid is valid for a month and is conditional on the bidders acquiring 100% of the debt. A decision on the sale is expected at the end of May.

It is not clear whether a bid has also been submitted by Elements, a consultancy acting on behalf of the UK private equity firm Anacap, however Finance reports that their bid is still valid.

Creditor banks attempted to sell their claims against Tuš together at the beginning of 2016, but no bidder was selected.

In February this year Abanka published an invitation for bids for its secured claims against retail segment Engrotuš, real estate arm Tuš Nepremičnine and Tuš Beograd worth a combined EUR 61.76m. The result of the process is not known.

According to Finance, the 16 creditor banks have had different interests in the proceedings so far because of different levels of security of their claims.

The paper says that they would not be willing to sell at a discount.

Siol expects some individual, well-secured creditors would be willing to sell. Those whose claims are secured with retail centres in major towns will have no problem liquidating their collateral.