Privatization in Slovenia

The privatization of the 1400 designated enterprises is likely to be completed by the end of this year. A clear sign of success is that the number of shares on offer has already proven to be greatly below demand and therefore the Association of Investment Funds has asked the Government to add more companies to the offer list.

Under a scheme launched at the beginning of 1994, each Slovenian citizen was entitled to receive privatization coupons worth SIT 100,000 - 400,000, (approx. USD 790 - 3200 at current rate) depending on age. The coupons could be then be used for purchasing companies' shares or securities issued by any of the 24 investment funds. The total issue of such coupons amounted to SIT 563 billion (approx. USD 4.4 million). Slovenes have already spent 90 % of their coupons, half of which were exchanged for investment fund securities.