News Parkiet

Banking

BGŻ doesn?t need new funding, executive says

Bank Gospodarki Żywnościowej, a mid-sized Polish lender specializing in financing for agricultural and food processing projects has enough assets and doesn?t need any more government funding, chief executive Jacek Bartkiewicz said. The bank, which is 35 percent owned by Dutch Rabobank, says its IPO on the Warsaw bourse may be delayed until 2006 contrary to previous announcements that said it will go public later this year.

Media

Agora earnings surprise WSE

Shares of newspaper publisher Agora SA rose 5 percent to close at 60.7 zloty yesterday after the company reported better than expected first-quarter earnings. Profits in the three months to April totaled 43.1 million zloty versus a loss of 9.2 million zloty in the same period a year ago. Sales surged as much as 34 percent thanks to much higher ad sales at its flagship ?Gazeta Wyborcza? daily and new projects, including book and encyclopedia sales. Number of copies of ?Gazeta Wyborcza", Poland?s second most popular tabloid, rose 3.2 percent compared with overall market decline of some 5.3 percent, Agora said.

The publisher also said it expects stronger revenues at AMS, its outdoor advertising unit.

Telecommunications

Netia slowing down

The country?s second largest fixed-line phone company, Warsaw-based Netia SA said its first quarter revenues were up 4 percent year on year to as much as 216 million zloty. Earnings were down 36.7 percent to PLN 23.1 million, more than 5 million zloty below analyst expectations. At the end of March Netia had about 424.500 subscribers, including 145.000 business customers.

Building materials

Opoczno announces IPO details

Poland?s biggest ceramic tile maker Opoczno SA has announced details of its planned 1 billion zloty Initial Public Offering, scheduled next month. Opoczno?s existing shareholders, Credit Suisse First Boston and Enterprise Investors private equity fund said they plan to sell their combined 98 percent stake in the company in one of this year?s biggest IPOs. If the offering is successful, the stock will start trading on or around June 16, Opoczno said.

Opoczno, which has 26 percent market share, reported sales of 426 million last year. Earnings totaled 76 million zloty. Earlier this year existing Opoczno shareholders have decided to pay out 172.2 million zloty in dividends before the company goes public.

Information Technology

ComputerLand wins contract in Russia

Poland?s no.2 publicly traded information technology group ComputerLand SA has won a deal to provide loan application processing system with an unnamed Russian bank. Warsaw-based ComputerLand bought copyrights to loan application processing application from Intelligent Software, another IT firm.