Troubled Austrian bank Hypo Group Alpe Adria is bringing forward the sale of most of its operations in central and eastern Europe, chief executive Gottwald Kranebitter said in an interview Monday.

The bank now plans to start the sales process of its subsidiaries in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro by the middle of next year, he told the magazine Trend.

Originally, Hypo had wanted to shed the subsidiaries by the end of 2014.

Hypo Alpe Adria is the second Austrian bank to withdraw from central and eastern Europe, after the Volksbanken group agreed in September to sell its business in the region to Russia's Sberbank.

Kranebitter said he hoped that "the market buys the companies at book value," amounting to some EUR1.5 billion ($1.95 billion).

High-risk loans worth EUR4 billion in Balkan countries, which have led to losses in recent years, would not be part of the sale and would be dealt with by Hypo.

Hypo was nationalized in 2009. It started to look for buyers for its Austrian and Italian subsidiaries earlier this year but has so far not found any.

The sale of the Balkans operations would take more than half a year, a company spokesman said.