News Parkiet

Mining

Marek Szczerbiak named as new CEO

of KGHM

Union-backed chief executive of KGHM Polish Copper was demoted to serve a regular board member yesterday. Wiktor Błądek, who worked as CEO despite the wishes of Poland?s Treasury Ministry, which has a controlling stake in KGHM, will be replaced by Marek Szczerbiak, 50, company?s top executive responsible for mining and production. Sources close to the situation say Szczerbiak, who begun his professional career as army officer after graduating from Armor College in Poznań, would continue Błądek?s strategy that focused on investments at a new mine at Głogów as well as attempts to expand abroad, buying copper deposits in Latin America and in Congo.

Transportation

Pekaes shareholders vote for higher dividend

Shareholders of former state-owned trucking company Pekaes SA have decided to pay out nearly all of last year?s earnings as dividends. Institutional investors led by Commercial Union pension fund voted to raise this year?s dividend to 0.59 zloty a share, up from management proposal of just 0.13 zloty. Peakes, which raised approximately 160 million zloty in last year?s IPO says it still has enough cash to finance acquisitions of several other logistics and shipping firms. The company says it expects to close one such deal, costing up to 10 million zloty sometime next month.

Venture capital

MCI to list two new companies

Venture capital fund MCI Management plans to list two more companies from its stable of IT, Internet and m-commerce holdings following this month?s IPO of Internet travel agency Travelplanet.pl. Itself a publicly traded company, MCI wants to capitalize on renewed demand for Internet stocks by listing Bankier.pl, a financial services website controlled together with Germany?s bmp AG in early 2006. Another, as yet unnamed company will be listed later that year, founder and chief executive Tomasz Czechowicz said.

The economy

Retail sales rose in May, GUS says

May retail sales were up 8 percent year-on-year, driven by higher employment and lower inflation figures, Poland?s Main Office of Statistics said yesterday. ?Retail sales were up for the first time in four months?, MOS deputy head Halina Dmochowska said. Unemployment was down 0.5 percent from April to 18.3 percent, while average wages rose 3 percent from the same period a

year ago, Dmochowska said.

Real estate

GTC to expand in Romania

Warsaw-based property developer Globe Trade Centre plans to spend as much as 75 million euros building two luxury apartment estates in the Romanian capital of Bucharest. The company plans to build over 650 apartment units through 60.8 percent owned subsidiary GTC Romania. Both projects will be financed largely with debt and advance payments received from future owners, with GTC and minority shareholders of GTC Romania contributing just 15 percent of the project costs.