News Parkiet

Equity market

PGNiG shareholders get no chance

to change their minds

Prospective shareholders of PGNiG, Poland?s biggest natural gas distributor won?t be able to cancel their ?buy? orders in the ongoing IPO because the company made changes to its issuing prospectus. New stock market rules that allow cancellation of IPO orders become effective later this year.

Construction industry

Mostostal gets back at Elektromontaż

shareholders

Mostostal Export construction group won round one against minority shareholders of a publicly traded subsidiary yesterday, demanding a 100 000 zloty deposit if they decide to go ahead with their demands for a special auditor. Boardroom battle over Warsaw-based Elektromontaż Warszawa started when a group of disaffected shareholders tried to wrest control over Mostostal?s 65 percent stake in the company several weeks ago.

E-commerce

eCard founders sell their stakes

Two Polish banks and a major IT group sold their stakes in online clearing house eCard earlier this week. Bank Zachodni WBK, BRE and ComputerLand will recoup just a small fraction of the several million zloty they originally invested in eCard five years ago. New owners of Warsaw-based company, privately held Permobile and an investment firm called Capital Partners say they plan to sell eCard on the WSE in an offering scheduled tentatively for the second quarter of next year.

Health care

Swissmed working on new strategy

Private hospital operator Swissmed says it is working on a new strategy as it prepares for a secondary offering to raise money for expansion. A start-up company based in Gdańsk, Swissmed plans to use the proceeds to open new medical clinics. The offering was initially supposed to go ahead in July, but Swissmed postponed sale of new stock by several months.

Pharmaceuticals

Adamed makes a bid for Jelfa

Privately held drug maker Adamed has made an official bid for the 47.5 percent stake in Jelfa, a mid-sized pharmaceutical company whose shares are listed on the WSE. Adamed is the ninth bidder for Jelfa?s stake now held by Poland?s Industrial Restructuring Agency and its allies. Other bidders include two venture capital funds, two Indian companies, two pharmaceutical firms from the Baltic states and US generic drug maker Ivax Corporation as well as Poland?s Ciech chemicals trading group.

Mining

Kompania Węglowa to cut costs, pay down debt

State-owned mining group Kompania Węglowa says it plans to cut operating expenses by nearly 800 million zloty over the next five years, shedding 11 000 jobs and merging coal mines. A perennial black hole sucking up government subsidies and other forms of public assistance, Kompania says it will repay much of the four billion zloty it owes to Social Security and local municipalities.