News Parkiet

Equity markets

Tax season begins with confusing instructions for investors

Investors who bought their shares outside regular stock exchange before Polish authorities begun collecting capital gains taxes could end up paying twice the amount of money they actually owe because of misleading explanations provided by local tax authorities. Urząd Skarbowy brochure attached to PIT-38 capital gains tax forms states that owners of employee stock must pay yet again for the shares received.

Food industry

Graal falls below IPO price

Rights to shares of Graal canned fish manufacturer plunged 6.3 percent to close at 14.05 zloty on their first day of trading on Friday, marking this year's worst IPO to date. The company sold just 87 percent of the 1.67 million shares offered in early February at 15 zloty each.

Grzegorz Leszczyński, chief executive of Internetowy Dom Maklerski which handled the IPO blamed retail investors, who bought 403.700 shares for Friday's sell-off.

'Fundamentally, this is a strong company. I believe that institutional investors will keep adding to their positions', Leszczyński said.

Graal became sixth Polish company to list its shares on the WSE this year.

Civil engineering

Elkop on a rollercoaster

Shares of Elkop SA, a small building contractor from Upper Silesia, rose more than 75 percent in just a few weeks and then gave back half of these gains in a few days as private investor Paweł Kalata added to his stake in the company despite ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. Mr. Kalata owns 78.120 shares of Elkop, or 18.3 percent of outstanding stock.

The stock closed 10.4 zloty yesterday, down 6.3 percent from Thursday's close.

Banking

Fortis earnings in Poland double

Fortis Bank Polska, a part of Fortis financial group of Belgium reported fiscal 2004 earnings of 75 million zloty, more than double its profits two years ago. Return On Equity at the bank, which specializes in lending to small and medium-sized firms, jumped from 7 to 13.5 percent. Fortis Bank Polska is 99.1 percent owned by its parent-company. Chief executive Jan Bujak said the bank plans to increase sales of F/X herding instruments and foreign trade-related financial services.

Politics

Ex-mining CEO Speczik may go into

public service, sources say

Stanisław Speczik, former chief executive of state-controlled mining giant KGHM Polish Copper has confirmed media rumors about his appointment as senior official at the Treasury Ministry. His nomination is yet to be confirmed by prime minister Marek Belka.

Speczik headed KGHM for about two and half years until April 2004 and was fired when he announced a plan to privatize the company over the opposition of trade unions.

Information Technology

Unima 2000 mulls IPO in late 2005

Kraków-based call center hardware provider Unima 2000 is considering an Initial Public Offering worth 'several million zloty' in the second half of the year, chief executive Krzysztof Kniszner told PARKIET on Friday. Mr. Kniszner says his company plans to hire an investment bank that will help Unima 2000 decide whether to list of stock on the Warsaw bourse or consider other options, like selling shares to a venture capital fund.

IPO would be used to buy even smaller IT firms, product development and training of Unima's IT staff. Founded in 1992, Unima 2000 had sales of just 8 million zloty last year. Profits before tax totaled just 500.000 zloty.

Chemicals

BorsodChem earnings tripleHungarian chemicals company BorsodChem Rt reported a 12.4 percent increase in sales to an estimated 148 billion forints yesterday thanks to higher output and improved demand for its products. BorsodChem, whose shares are listed in Warsaw in addition to its home market, earned 17.2 billion forints, or 91 million dollars, a three-fold increase from profits reported in 2003. Laszlo Kovacs, Borsodchem chief executive, told investors that his company may consider bidding for Polish plastics manufacturer Zachem, which is scheduled for privatization.