A consortium of owners of Ljubljanska borza has picked Greek Hellenic Exchanges and Austria's Wiener Boerse as the top bidders that remain in the game for the purchase of a 81.01% stake in the company that operates the Ljubljana Stock Exchange (LJSE), Arkas, the company coordinating the sale, said in a press release, Slovene Press Agency reports.

The Athens and Vienna stock exchanges are entering the final phase of the sale after being picked from a list of four selected companies which all submitted binding bids before the deadline, set for last Friday.

According to Arkas, the Greek and Austrian bidders were chosen for making the highest offers as well as for committing themselves to keep the seat of the company in Slovenia, to continue to develop the capital market in Slovenia and to refrain from raising the prices of the stock market's services.

While originally 64.15% of Ljubljanska borza had been put up for sale, the consortium which launched the sale has in the meanwhile been joined by more shareholders, which has raised the stake offered to 81.01%.

Arkas, which would not reveal which of the initial seven bidders had made it into the round for binding bids, hopes that all outstanding procedures will be closed by June, when the buyer could be selected pending an approval from the Competition Protection Office.

Ljubljanska borza had been approached by several European exchanges in 2007, with the Vienna, Athens, Warsaw and OMX stock exchanges announcing they would be bidding as part of the sale.

Also bidding was a consortium of seven Slovenian companies headed by the country's central clearing house KDD.

Information on the value of the deal has been largely speculative, with estimates ranging from EUR 125.19 per share, reportedly offered by OMX, and as much as EUR 700 per share, allegedly offered by the Wiener Boerse.