Equity markets
Stockbrokers report record earnings
Polish stockbrokers had their best year on record in 2004, boosted by strong IPO market that accompanied last year?s rally on the Warsaw bourse. Nine of the nineteen active brokerage houses, including heavyweights like CDM Pekao and Biuro Maklerskie BZ WBK, reported aggregate earnings of more than 200 million zloty, almost three times their total profits in 2003. Pekao?s CDM has more than doubled its earnings to PLN 77.7 million, making it the third most profitable UniCredit unit in Central Europe. Industry sources say it will be very hard to beat last year?s returns because politics and likely to delay or derail altogether several key privatization IPOs plannes for 2005.
