News Parkiet

Privatization

Polish Treasury demands higher dividends

Polish Treasury Ministry is pushing for higher dividends from government-controlled corporations. Jacek Socha's department said earlier it plans to raise as much as 2 billion zloty from dividends this year, some 500 million zloty more than its initial target. In the last few weeks alone Socha said he may vote for higher dividends from KGHM copper mine and PKN Orlen oil refinery over the heads of their CEOs.

Petrochemicals

Grupa Lotos falls from post-IPO high

Shares of Grupa Lotos oil refinery closed at 30 zloty a share yesterday after sliding steadily throughout the day from their IPO high of 32 zloty in the first moments of trading on the Warsaw bourse. Rights to shares, which also begun trading yesterday, closed at 30.1 zloty, just 3.8 percent above their selling price of 29 zloty and 1.3 zloty below their intraday high at the opening to the dismay of retail investors, many of whom took expensive loans from their brokers to buy the stock.

Some 30 000 individual investors bought shares of Grupa Lotos, Poland's second largest refinery in a

two-week offering that begun in mid-May. The company has raised just over a billion zloty to finance an ambitious expansion program, while Nafta Polska privatization agency pulled its part of the offering. Nafta sought to sell almost 9 million existing shares, also priced at 29 zloty each.

Chief executive Paweł Olechnowicz tried to cheer up investors dismayed by yesterday's slim gains. 'Now we want to increase our earnings as much as possible and obviously we will share our profits with our shareholders', Olechnowicz said.

Trading volume totaled 356 million zloty, accounting for almost two-thirds of yesterday's trading on the Polish stock exchange.

Civil engineering

Polimex to build metallurgical coke plant

Second largest publicly traded building company, Warsaw-based Polimex-Mostostal Siedlce has won a contract to build new met coke plant for Koksownia Przyjaźń coke manufacturer. The project will take eighteen months to complete, Przyjaźń said. According to Przyjaźń officials, new facility will cost an estimated 430 million zloty, or nearly 140 million dollars. Polimex itself wouldn't comment on the deal before it receives an official confirmation awarding the contract.

Media

Broker FM lock-up expires

Major shareholder of Broker FM commercial radio broadcaster is in no hurry to sell part of his stake after the expiry of lock-up period later this month, senior company executive told PARKIET yesterday. Some 250 000 shares of Broker FM, owner of the all-national pop radio station RMF FM will hit the market at the end of June. The stake is held by a company controlled by RMF FM founder Stanisław Tyczyński, who failed to sell all 300 000 shares offered as part of an IPO last year because of sluggish demand. Shares of Broker FM have traded below their IPO price of 83 zloty after the offering, but the stock recovered this year after better than expected first-quarter earnings, closing at 88 zloty in yesterday's trading.

Shipping

Odratrans announces IPO details

Barge operator Odratrans SA said yesterday in its IPO filing it plans to sell up to 747 000 new and existing shares in an offering later this month. The company, Poland's biggest river shipping firm with about 63 percent market share, plans to use IPO proceeds to finance acquisitions and purchases of new ships in Germany, one of its main markets. It now has almost 500 small ships and barges.

Odratrans said in a public statement it plans to increase this year's sales to around 105 million zloty. It expects earnings of 10.4 million zloty compared with last year's pro forma earnings of 8.9 million zloty.

Textiles

Bytom seeks new funding

Men's suits maker Bytom SA plans to raise about 6.6 million zloty, or just over 2 million dollars in a secondary offering next month, the company said in a statement this week. Silesia-based firm plans to sell 550 000 new shares at 12 zloty each, a small discount to yesterday's closing price of 12.2 zloty.

Orders from institutional investors and other qualified investors will be accepted on July 11 and 12, Bytom said. Individual investors will get their chance to buy any stock that's left between July 26 and 29.

Bytom now has 1.2 million shares outstanding.