Slovenia’s state investment fund SDH received one binding bid for its 73 per cent stake in  Telekom Slovenije, but gave no information about bidder or size of bid, although Reuters has reported it is investment fund Cinven.

Previously, it was reported that Cinven and Deutsche Telekom would lodge rival bids of around €110 ($117) per share. Neither have commented.

Telekom Slovenije is the country’s leading mobile operator as well as fixed incumbent. It is worth an estimated $760 million and has 1.15 million mobile connections with 52 per cent of market share at end Q1 2015, according to GSMA Intelligence figures.

It is also the largest of 15 state-owned companies that were slated for privatisation in 2013.

In January it was reported that the country hopes to use proceeds from the sales, estimated to be around €1.5 billion, to reduce public debt, which was around 81 per cent of GDP in 2014.

Metod Dragonja, state secretary at the finance ministry, said that the government will not sell the operator if bids did not meet expectations, although what these expectations are is unclear.

The sale of the operator had been on hold since early July when the previous government decided to suspend the process, pending the result of the 13 July elections.

Back in 2008, Slovenia cancelled a proposed sale of the company, saying the bids were too low.