The court also appointed a five-member creditor board and announced that the creditors have until 27 December to report their claims.

Filing the proposal for restructuring last week, Rimske terme chairman Alenka Iskra said that said that the financial plan for the EUR 48.5m project was overly optimistic.

The company is offering its creditors - who had a total of EUR 2.8m in claims at the end of September - a 50% repayment in not later than four years. The proposal does not envisage conversion of claims into ownership stakes.

One of the measures for financial restructuring proposed by Iskra is a capital injection of up to EUR 4m.

The latest attempt at a capital injection, under the previous management, had failed, and the company had accumulated a EUR 100,000 in losses by mid-November.

The NLB bank, the Zrece-based tool maker Unior and investment firm Triglav Nalozbe, which together hold almost a third of Rimske terme shares, oppose a capital injection.

Debt restructuring was launched only eight months after the spa resort near Lasko in central Slovenia opened to the public following a prolonged period of decay.

The facility is a renovated military spa resort, which was closed in October 1991, when the Ministry of Defence decided it would no longer use it for military purposes. Six governments were subsequently involved in the efforts to renovate the resort.