The public call, which was published in the business daily Finance on Tuesday, refers to 1,814,007 Vipap Videm Krško shares with the nominal value of EUR 41.70.

Potential investors are invited to contact consultancy Ernst&Young from Prague, which has been chosen as the financial advisor in the sale, and submit bids by 1 June.

Vipap is a producer of newsprint and coated graphic papers. Since it was sold to a Czech investor in 1996 after it went into receivership, Vipap has changed several owners.

In 1998 it came under Investment and Postal Bank Prague and in 2000 under another Czech bank, CSOB, only to end up at the Czech Finance Ministry in 2008.

While results for 2014 are not available yet, figures for 2013 show that the company generated a loss of EUR 3.9 million on revenues of EUR 95.4 million.

Its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization reached EUR 5.6 million, while earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) stood at EUR 1.7 million.

The company's annual production capacity is up to 140,000 tonnes of standard and improved newsprint and up to 70,000 tonnes of graphic papers, according the its website.

Vipap's origins go back to 1939 when industrialist Franc Bonač built a cellulose factory in Videm near Krško and employed 180 locals.

The factory was relaunched after WWII and got four paper machines between 1955 and 1975. In 1976, a new cellulose production unit was launched.