Ljubljana - The Bank Assets Management Company (BAMC) is soliciting binding bids for its 12.83% stake in the chemical company Cinkarna Celje. The deadline for submissions in what is a new attempt by the state-owned bad bank to sell the stake is 6 April.

The stake in Cinkarna Celje represents 104,504 shares or 13.35% of the voting rights in the company, shows the announcement of the public call for bids published on Monday in the business newspaper Finance.

BAMC has been without its voting rights in the Celje-based company since January, as the statutory deadline for the bad bank to sell the assets it had acquired before 2016 is expiring.

According to unofficial information obtained by Finance, interest in shares of Cinkarna Celje has been expressed by Croatian pension funds, which have been very active in the Slovenian capital market in recent months.

However, due to limitations in the composition of their portfolios, it is not possible for a single fund to buy the entire stake.

The shares of Cinkarna Celje are listed on the Ljubljana Stock Exchange, with the price per share last Friday standing at EUR 252. Its price has declined since the Russian attack on Ukraine.

In addition to BAMC, a 20.17% stake in the company is held by Modra Zavarovalnica, an insurer that manages the top-up pension fund of public sector employees, and Slovenian Sovereign Holding has a 11.5% stake as the other major para-state owners.

According to Finance, BAMC has been procrastinating with the sale of its stake in Cinkarna Celje also because of political opposition from both sides of the aisle.

The latest available business data for Cinkarna Celje shows that in the first nine months of last year, the company generated EUR 145.9 million in sales revenue, by 12% year-on-year, and almost doubled net profit to EUR 26.2 million.