News Parkiet

Real estate

GTC may buy out minority shareholder

of CEE units

Globe Trade Centre may have to buy out Deutsche Bank minority stakes in three operating units in Hungary, Romania and Serbia. FIC Globe, a real estate fund controlled by Deutsche Bank, has both put and call options on its 8.4 - 8.6 percent stakes in the three firms based on several deals signed before GTC went public last year.

Equity markets

M&A activity up 120 pct. last year, PcW says

Mergers & acquisitions activity has increased 120 percent last year compared to 2003, PricewaterhouseCoopers said in a report yesterday. According to data compiled by PcW, total value of M&A deals more than doubled to 6.22 billion dollars. Foreign investors, mainly those from the US, France and Germany accounted for as much as 46 percent of mergers and acquisitions closed last year, PcW said. The biggest deal, sale of Metro AG?s real estate to US-based Rida Development Corporation, cost 840 million dollars.

Information Technology

Teta still planning WSE listing

Enterprise Resource Planning software maker Teta SA has reiterated plans to list its shares on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. ?We want to select a broker and an investment bank that will help us on our way towards public listing?, chief executive Jerzy Krawczyk says.

Teta, which is 54 percent owned by US private equity fund Enterprise Investors, reported fiscal 2004 earnings of 3.4 million zloty on sales of PLN 33.3 million. Wrocław-based firm says it plans to increase earnings by about 30 percent this year.

Petrochemicals

Grupa Lotos to build new office in Gdańsk

Poland?s no. 2 oil refinery, Gdańsk-based Grupa Lotos, says it plans to build a new corporate headquarters by October of next year. Ten-story building with 6000 square meters of office space is expected to cost ?tens of millions of zlotys?, sources close to the situation said.

Metals

Ferrum priced at 9.5 zloty

New shares of steel pipe manufacturer Ferrum SA will be sold at 9.5 zloty, at the lower end of its indicative price range, Katowice-based company said yesterday. Ferrum said earlier it plans to sell up to 5 million new shares at 9.5 to 12.5 zloty each.

Sources close to the situation say the company sold just a small of the 1.5 million shares offered to retail investors. Demand from institutional investors is stronger, people familiar with the situation told PARKIET yesterday. Ferrum said the offering would be called off if it sells less than 1.87 million shares.

Information Technology

Telmax goes shopping

Prokom group software house Telmax SA says it plans to go on a shopping spree using the proceeds of this month?s secondary offering. The company, soon to be renamed Spin after the reverse takeover by privately held firm of the same name, said yesterday it has agreed to pay 16.6 million zloty for a 66 percent stake in document flow management company Optix Polska from its main shareholder, Poland?s no. 1 information technology provider Prokom Software. It also said it would buy five other small IT firms, including another software house making billing software for utility companies.

All six acquisitions will cost Telmax around 50 million zloty, company officials said yesterday.

Automotive industry

Ukraine?s AwtoZAZ to buy former Daewoo plant

Ukrainian car maker AwtoZAZ is set to buy FSO, a former Daewoo factory in Warsaw, Polish Economy Minister Jacek Piechota said at the parliament yesterday. The deal with AwtoZAZ will be signed within a week, Piechota said.