News Parkiet

Futures market

SEC probes suspicious trading in currency contracts

An unnamed client of a local asset management firm lost some 50 000 zloty, or 15 600 dollars as a result of two suspicious trades involving illiquid US dollar currency contracts, the SEC said after investigating the situation. Both trades were made on September 21 and 22 using the same computer terminal, the SEC said. Trader at an asset management house involved was connected to the owner of the account, who benefited from the situation, the SEC said without elaborating further.

Mutual funds

New mutual funds boost their market share

Two Polish mutual fund groups, TFI Opera and Investors TFI plan to raise more money for alternative investment products, including private equity and hedge fund investments. Opera, which started out in May, now has almost 190 million zloty in assets under management.

Telecommunications

Netia rated a ?buy? at DM BZ WBK

Securities analysts at Dom Maklerski BZ WBK turned bullish on Netia recently, giving Poland?s second largest local phone company a ?buy? rating with a twelve-month target price of 5.87 zloty a share because of its stake in Netia Mobile, a new 3G mobile phone venture. The stock fell 2.9 percent to close at 4.62 zloty yesterday.

Hotels

BZ WBK ups stake in Orbis

Money manager BZ WBK AIB Asset Management said it has over 2.3 million shares of Orbis hotel group, part of France?s Accor. BZ WBK?s 5 percent stake is worth approximately 74 million zloty, or 23.1 million dollars based on yesterday?s price.

Telecommunications

MNI sells part of Czech fiber optic link

Publicly traded call center operator and telecommunications provider MNI said it has sold another section of a fiber optic link connecting Poland with the Czech Republic to Tele-PERN, a telecommunications unit of the state-owned pipeline operator PERN. MNI said the deal would boost its earnings by approximately 1.4 million zloty.

Pension funds

New government may block pension fund mergers

Prime-minister designate Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz said it would seek to ?prevent formation of oligopolies? in the domestic pension fund industry in a policy statement released recently. The move would stop future mergers between the country?s private pension funds, sources say.

Poland has fifteen private pensions funds, down from the original 21. One of the existing funds, OFE Dom, will be folded into OFE Credit Suisse within months.

Utilities

Praterm raises earnings estimate

District heating systems operator Praterm has raised its earnings estimate for 2005 to 13 million zloty, up 18 percent from its original estimate of 11 million zloty. Praterm, which reported 1H earnings of 7.1 million zloty, said it expects higher earnings because of impact of recent acquisition, its purchase of Atex heating company from Zamość in south-eastern Poland.