News Parkiet

Banking

BPH's Wancer best-paid banking CEO,

survey shows

Bank BPH's Józef Wancer is the best paid chief executive of publicly traded Polish banks that reported personal compensation of their senior managers, a survey of executive compensation by PARKIET shows. Mr. Wancer, who received over 3 million zloty last year, presided over BPH's market expansion that saw the bank report record earnings of 788 million zloty in 2004. He wasn't the best-paid banking executive however. That title went to Mr. Sunil Sreenivasan, former vice CEO of Bank Handlowy, Polish unit of Citigroup. Mr. Sreenivasan is reported to have earned almost twice as much in wages and other perks, some 5.9 million zloty in total. Bogusław Kott, the CEO of Bank Millennium is in the fourth place despite the talk that he might be the best paid senior executive in the Polish banking industry. His takehome pay from Millennium totaled 2.1 million zloty. Mr. Kott also serves on the board of Millennium's parent company, Portugal's BCP.

Polish companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange begun reporting detailed breakdown of their executives' compensation for the first time this year. Previously they would only publish aggregate figures for executive and non-executive board members, sometimes throwing in wages of other senior managers as well.

Telecommunications

ET seeks to overturn Vienna verdict

Elektrim Telekomunikacja, the telecommunications arm of Elektrim power and telecoms group that is part-owned by Vivendi said it has filed a suit to throw out a verdict by Vienna court of arbitrage in its dispute over control of Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa, Poland's biggest mobile phone company. Vivendi-backed ET also said it has appealed a decision by Warsaw business court to register ownership changes at PTC.

Publishing

PPWK surges on news of likely contract

Shares of PPWK map-publisher rose 16.8 percent to close at 7.3 zloty on Friday after its digital map-making subsidiary GeoInvent said it was picked by government agricultural agency ARiMR to supply database information about Polish farms. The deal, worth almost 11 million zloty, will be shared by GeoInvent with several other map-making and technology firms. It will be signed within seven days unless other bidders appeal ARiMR's choice.

Steel industry

Ferrum sets pricing range

Steel pipe manufacturer Ferrum SA set the range for its secondary offering on Friday at 9.5 zloty to 12.5 zloty a share, saying it would offer up to 15.45 million new shares. Katowice-based Ferrum now has 10.4 million shares outstanding trading at just under 10 zloty a share. If the company is successful, Ferrum will raise between 47.5 and 62.5 million zloty, net of expenses. Proceeds from the sale will be used to increase working capital as well as new warehouse and production facilities, the company said in a filing document published earlier.

Information technology

Softbank seeks new clients

Polish information technology provider Softbank SA will be turning gradually into a consulting firm, selling value-added services to traditional financial industry customers and getting rid of non-core assets and business lines, chief executive Krzysztof Korba told PARKIET in an interview last week. 'Then we would get our fee only when our client sees specific benefits from our services, grows sales or product margins', Korba said. In addition to asset sales, Softbank may buy smaller IT firms that own niche, high-margin products. Korba, who joined Softbank last year, replacing long-time CEO Aleksander Lesz, said Warsaw-based company is interested in buying unnamed French firm.Softbank will no longer seek IT contracts in Russia and Belarus, Korba said, calling several deals there 'pure fiction'. His company has already signed a lucrative deal to build risk management system for Austria's Raiffeisen, sending several consultants to work at the headquarters of Vienna-based lender. On the domestic market Softbank doesn't expect significant revenues from a 220 million zloty deal to build nation-wide vehicle registration system until the years 2007 and 2008, Korba said.