Major bankrupt construction companies such as SCT, Primorje and Vegrad and church-owned Zvon 1 Holding and telco T2 are among the biggest debtors.

SCT owes Slovenia's biggest bank a total of EUR 187m backed by EUR 39m in collateral. Zvon 1 Holding meanwhile owes EUR 115m on EUR 35m in insurances and Primorje EUR 100m on EUR 52 of collateral, POP TV reported on Wednesday.

Other major NLB debtors include GPG Inženiring, Grep, Sava, Montavar Metalna nova, Energoplan in Vegrad. These are only 10 of the companies that are over three months behind payments. Over half of the companies are in receivership.

NKBM debtors include Primorje (EUR 49.2m), MTB (EUR 36.7m), Alpos (EUR 29m) and CPM (EUR 28.8m). Out of the top ten NKBM debtors, eight are in receivership.

POP TV also said the bad loans are being informally investigated by a special committee set up by the police and the state prosecutors. Prosecutor Jože Kozina, who led the prosecution in the Merkur case, is also tipped to be in charge of the bad loans investigation.

Interior Minister Vinko Gorenak, who appeared on Kanal A's prime time news show Svet na Kanalu A, refused to comment on the leaked report.

He stressed however that people expected the criminal police and the state prosecution crack down on white-collar crime. He suggested results of the investigation could be expected "very soon".