"The disclosure of any details of the selling process and the planned timetable could negatively affect the success of the procedure," custodian of state assets SSH has told the STA, adding that it will keep the public informed on all major decisions.

The only official piece of information is that the sale of Slovenia's leading telecommunications services provider is in the second phase in which prospective buyers are preparing to submit binding bids for almost 73% stock in the company.

Non-binding bids have unofficially been submitted by eight interested parties with Deutsche Telekom, the UK-based equity fund Cinven and the US asset manager Providence said to be in the game for the submission of binding offers.

Media speculation about the price offered has been rife. The Telekom share closed 1.78% lower at EUR 132.60 on the Ljubljana Stock Exchange on Thursday. Business daily Finance quotes market pundits as saying it will be good if the price reaches EUR 140 per share. That would value the whole company at EUR 915m.

It is not clear whether the buyers would accept such an offer, but daily Dnevnik has recently offered as the increasingly likely scenario that the sale would fall through just like it did in 2008, while Deutsche Telekom as the favourite and the other prospective buyers would in time bid again at much lower prices.