News Parkiet

Equity markets

International investors rule on WSE, survey shows

International investors, mainly UK-based, accounted for 43 percent of stock trading on Warsaw Stock Exchange in the first six months of this year, the highest ever in the bourse's fourteen-year history, a WSE survey shows. Trading by local retail investors was down to 24 percent of the total. Last year WSE reported in a similar survey they had 33 percent stake in the trading volume. Individual investors still accounted for four-fifths of overall trading involving futures contracts. Domestic institutional investors had a 33 percent share in stock trading.

Total trading volume on the WSE in the first six months of 2005 rose to an all-time high of 74 billion zloty ($22.8 billion).

Printing & publishing

R.R. Donnelley to buy Poligrafia

R.R. Donnelley & Sons, North America's biggest printing company, has agreed to pay as much as 173 million zloty, or 53 million dollars for all outstanding shares of Poligrafia SA, a publicly traded commercial printer from southern Poland. The US company said it would pay 32.67 zloty a share for Poligrafia, offering a 10 percent premium over its closing price on Wednesday. Shares of Poligrafia, which is controlled by an ING Group private equity fund, were suspended Thursday on the Warsaw Stock Exchange because of the bid.