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The central bank has recently ordered the bank to carry out a capital hike of at least EUR 160m by 25 April, otherwise the government would recapitalise and nationalise it, and transfer its bad claims to the Bank Asset Management Company (BAMC).

While the bank's shareholders are likely to approve the capital hike, it is unclear whether there will be enough interest in the issue of fresh shares to raise the required capital in time.

Analysts have said this would likely require the involvement of a foreign investor.

With a 41% stake, the biggest owner of Banka Celje is NLB, the country's top bank, which was one of the three major banks bailed out and nationalised by the state in December.

Banka Celje saw its net loss quintuple to EUR 126.3m in 2013 on impairments and provisions that rose three-fold over the year before to EUR 214m.

The bank's total assets dropped 20% year-on-year to EUR 1.8bn and its Core Tier 1 capital ratio dropped to 1.79% from 9.33%.