For Slovenes, privatisations of state companies are something of a novelty. When shares in NKBM, a bank based in Maribor, the second city, were offered to the public last month, queues snaked out of the doors.

“The public have this perception that if the government is selling and people are queuing up, then it must be a good deal,” says Uros Marter, director of Arkas, a boutique corporate finance advisory firm in Ljubljana.