The bank had to be rescued by the state last year when Slovenia narrowly avoided an international bailout. The government had to pour more than 3 billion euros into local banks to prevent their collapse under a mass of bad loans.

NKBM did not provide a forecast for its full-year 2014 profit but said it would end this year with a positive result. In May, the bank had predicted a small loss for the year. Slovenia hopes to sell NKBM by the end of the first quarter of 2015 and has received several bids. Hungarian bank OTP has submitted the highest bid for NKBM, worth 150 million euros, according to local media reports. OTP and Slovenian authorities declined to comment on the reports.

In November, NKBM reported a profit of 26.4 million euros for the first nine months of 2014, which compared to a loss of 66.9 million for the same period a year earlier. In 2013, NKBM made a loss of 648.4 million euros. The bank narrowly failed the European Central Bank stress tests in October. This showed that it would have a capital shortfall of 31 million euros at the end of 2016 under an adverse economic scenario. It said it would cover the shortfall from this year's profits.

NKBM said its balance sheet assets were expected to fall to 4.3 billion euros by the end of 2015 versus 4.46 billion at the end of September 2014. The bank plans to cut costs by 3.1 percent next year, it said in a statement, which was published following a supervisory board meeting this week.