"We are also considering a possibility of selling Agrokor's debt and are in talks with buyers on the international markets," Poletayev said in an interview with Reuters.

Agrokor, Croatia's biggest private firm, piled up debts worth some 45 billion kuna ($6.42 billion), or six times its equity, during a rapid expansion in the region, according to the latest available official data from last September.

Agrokor is the biggest employer in the Balkan region with some 60,000 staff.

Poletayev said Sberbank, one of the biggest lenders to Agrokor, was ready to go to court to seek a suitable solution in restructuring the company's debt.

More clarity on the extent of Agrokor's debt is expected by the end of June because all the creditors, including both banks and suppliers, have until June 10 to submit their claims.

Agrokor's owner Ivica Todoric handed control of the company to the Croatian government earlier this month under an emergency law to handle a restructuring of the business.

Before the law was introduced, Sberbank had provided Agrokor with 100 million euros in March and now wants to get senior loan status for that money, giving it a preferential claim in a restructuring.

The possibility of providing new loans to Agrokor and future talks on bailing out the Balkan firm will depend on the status of that 100 million euro loan, Poletayev said.

Poletayev said that Sberbank's loan had kept Agrokor operations afloat for two months, without which "the company would have gone bankrupt a month earlier."

"That is why before providing extra finance we think it is appropriate to have a right for preferential claim on a 100 million euro loan provided by Sberbank," the banker said.

Two weeks ago, Agrokor secured an initial cash injection worth 80 million euros from five local banks. Its crisis manager, Ante Ramljak, said that the company would identify how much money it needed to keep afloat this year before opening talks with new potential lenders.

Agrokor has made a rough estimate that it will need up to 450 million euros this year.

(Reporting by Kira Zavyalova in Moscow and Igor Ilic in Zagreb; writing by Andrey Ostroukh; editing by Susan Thomas and Jane Merriman)

By Kira Zavyalova and Igor Ilic