Earlier today a daily reported that Agrokor lowered its bid for a 53% stake in Mercator to EUR 80 per share from the EUR 120 agreed last June with the Slovenian consortium selling the company. The new offer would have valued the stake at a mere EUR 160m as opposed to EUR 240m in the original offer.

This has rekindled speculation of Agrokor trying to get out of the deal which is fuelled by rumours that the Croatian group does not have the money to fund the takeover.

As a result, the Mercator share plunged today by 12% to EUR 71.1 on the Ljubljana Stock Exchange.

Agrokor, which has until the end of this month to finalise the deal, tried to buy Mercator once already, but pulled out in early 2012 after the sale was blocked over demands to keep Slovenian companies in domestic hands.

This is the ninth attempt at selling the once flourishing company.

The Mercator group generated more than EUR 2bn in sales revenues in the first nine months of 2013, reporting a net loss of EUR 17.6m for the period.

The group plans to generate EUR 2.7bn in sales revenues, down 3.5% compared to the plan for, and profit of EUR 339,000 in 2014.