The financial services company Ljubljanica, which is owned by Trigal, has informed the securities market and competition watchdogs about the takeover intent, which was published in the newspaper Delo on Friday.

A takeover bid for the department store, which has been unsuccessfully on sale for years, is expected to be published 10 to 30 days after the intent.

The largest owners of Nama - Zavarovalnica Triglav, its asset management arm Triglav Skladi and the fellow insurer Adriatic Slovenica - tried to sell it already in 2016 and 2017, but did not receive any binding bids.

Nama, which was opened in 1946 as the first department store in Slovenia, generated EUR 10.8m in net sales revenue in the fist nine months of 2018, which is 2.6% less than in the same period in 2017 and 1.5% below plans.

It posted a net loss of EUR 147,000 in the first nine months of last year after finishing the same period in 2017 with a net profit of EUR 210,000.