News Parkiet

Brokerage industry

DI BRE tops stockbroker ranking

The single best stockbroker is BRE Bank's Dom Inwestycyjny BRE Banku according to a survey of Poland's brokerage houses by PARKIET. The brokerage received the highest overall score after adding up several categories, such as commission levels and other fees, access to international stock exchanges and online stock quotes, number of IPO's handled and their first-day performance. The also-rans, in descending orders, include Bankowy Dom Maklerski PKO BP and Millennium Dom Maklerski.

Equity markets

WSE rally running out of steam

Blue chip rally has lifted Warsaw bourse indexes to a new high on Friday, but nearly a third of all stocks are trading below their levels four months ago. Big-cap WIG20 index rose 28.5 percent since mid-May, boosted by the strong demand by emerging market investors.

Energy

PGNiG to pay dividends

Polish natural gas distributor PGNiG may pay about 20 percent of next year's profits as dividends to shareholders, chief executive Marek Kossowski said yesterday. The payout from this year's earnings would be limited to 5 percent, he added. Now in the middle of a 900-million zloty IPO, PGNiG reported six-month earnings of 569 million zloty. Analysts expect full-year profits at the state-owned monopoly to reach as much as 1.3 billion zloty, or approximately 0.19 zloty a share.

Information Technology

Comp Rzeszów to enter ERP market

Financial services software maker Comp Rzeszów says it plans to buy two ERP software houses later this year in an ambitious bid to enter new market segment. Comp Rzeszów, whose shares are listed on the Warsaw bourse, won't name the two companies. However, it did say it has already completed due diligence at two unnamed privately held firms and that both deals will be completed shortly.

Mining

Kopex to book Argentine sales this year

Mining equipment supplier Kopex SA said it expects to book all sales from its 100-million zloty contract with Argentina's Rio Turbo mine this year. Chief executive Rafał Rost says Kopex, until recently a state-owned company that also trades in coal and electricity, may report record revenues this year after completing several takeovers and a string of international contracts, like the one at Rio Turbo. In 2004 Kopex posted sales of 436 million zloty.

Banking

Cooperative banks at a crossroads

Polish cooperative banks could double their market share to around 15 percent in five years' time, the head of National Association of Cooperative Banks says. NACB president Eugeniusz Laszkiewicz criticized government regulations that may force some cooperative banks to close unless they have at least a million euros in net assets. Others say many of the 600 cooperative banks won't be able to raise enough money to boost their collective 7 percent market share.