News Parkiet

Equity markets

PGNiG soars as investors top up

Shares of Polish natural gas monopoly PGNiG surged as much as 34.2 percent at the opening on their first day of trading on Friday because of huge demand from investors unable to buy enough stock in an IPO earlier this month. Boosted by positive sentiment towards energy stocks PGNiG, also known as Polish Oil and Gas Company, closed at 3.81 zloty, a 27.9 percent gain from its IPO price of 2.98 zloty. Some 214 million shares changed hands on the first day of trading, representing almost a quarter of the entire IPO. PGNiG sold 900 million new shares for a total of 2.7 billion zloty, or $840 million in this year?s biggest Initial Public Offering.

Analysts, most of whom expected the stock to start trading at well below 4 zloty a share, said international investors accounted for much of the trading on Friday. PGNiG?s offering was twenty-one times oversubscribed by foreign investors.

M&A?s

ING, Legg Mason bid for Handlowy?s

asset management unit

ING Groep and Legg Mason are two of the three bidders for Bank Handlowy?s mutual fund company and asset management firm, sources familiar with the situation told PARKIET recently. Part of Citigroup, Handlowy said it would sell TFI BH, a mutual fund group with 1.2 billion zloty in assets under management and HanZA, a company that manages some 3.5 billion zloty in assets, including the funds of TFI BH, as part of Citigroup?s sale of its asset management unit to Legg Mason.

ING, which already has a mid-sized asset management firm in Poland, wouldn?t confirm or deny its interest in Bank Handlowy?s wealth management units, while Legg Mason wouldn?t comment on the rumors.

Pharmaceuticals

Polfa Warszawa

to make cheap cancer drugs

Shareholders of the state-owned pharmaceutical company Polfa Warszawa are set to meet on October 3 to approve plans to start production of inexpensive cancer drugs that are now imported from other countries. Several weeks ago a similar proposal was vetoed unexpectedly by the Treasury Ministry and by PHF, a pharmaceutical holding controlled by the government.

Pulp and paper

Grajewo to buy Silekol resin manufacturer

Poland?s biggest wood paneling manufacturer Pfleiderer Grajewo said on Friday it has agreed to buy 99 percent stake in industrial resin manufacturer Silekol from Zakłady Azotowe Kędzierzyn nitrogen plant, securing access to key supplier. Grajewo didn?t say how much it expects to pay for Silekol. It said it expects the deal to close by mid-December.

Metals

FAM buys stake in Mostostal Wrocław

Industrial metals supplier FAM Technika Odlewnicza said it has paid approximately 2 million zloty for a small stake in Mostostal Wrocław, an engineering company that specializes in building ice-skating rinks. It bought 17 percent of Mostostal, taking its stake in the company to 92 percent.