Slovenia's NLB expects loss in 2012, 2013

NLB has been affected by a gap in provisions on non-performing loans and needs to set aside this and next year additional funds, affecting its bottomline, Janko Medja said in a statement on Wednesday.

NLB posted a consolidated after-tax loss of 239.2 million euro ($309 million) in 2011.

In July, the European Commission said it had temporarily approved, under EU state aid rules, an additional capital injection to NLB for reasons of financial stability. The EU executive said at the time it had been notified by the Slovenian government of plans to subscribe 320 million euro of contingent convertible instruments and to inject 62.9 million euro in common equity in order to improve the capital of NLB so that the bank complies with the European Banking Authority stress test requirements.

A new restructuring plan will be presented by the NLB managing board in the first quarter of 2013 that will serve as a basis for the successful completion of the procedure with the European Commission, the Wednesday statement said.

NLB holds one third of the total assets in the country's banking sector. At end-2011 the Slovenian state held a direct stake of 45.62% in NLB and Belgian bank KBC was the second-biggest shareholder with a 25% stake.

($=0.775 euro)