News Parkiet

Equity market

PKO BP wins best performing

stock award

PKN Orlen oil refinery won PARKIET 'Bulls & Bears' award for the best-performing blue-chip stock in WIG20 index yesterday at a ceremony that took place inside Warsaw Stock Exchange main building at ul. Książęca street in Warsaw. State-owned PKO BP bank received the award as the best IPO of 2004, while Agora newspaper publisher was ranked the best company in terms of corporate governance standards. Unimil condom-maker was judged to be the best-managed public company traded on the WSE.

Media

Agora may buy TP's phone directory unit

Polish newspaper publisher Agora SA won't deny rumors that it plans to buy Telekomunikacja Polska's phone directory unit if and when the company goes on sale as part of TP's strategy to sell non-core or underperforming assets.

According to reports in the local media, Agora may have talked about buying TP Ditel, publisher of TP's phone books in 2004. Zbigniew Bąk, a senior executive at Agora suggested that his company might still be interested in buying an established phone book company. 'Building something from scratch wouldn't make sense', Bąk said in a phone interview with PARKIET. TP Ditel is the only phone directory on the market right now.

Polish market is divided among Sweden's Eniro, Polskie Książki Telefoniczne and TP Ditel.

Food industry

Polmos IPO priced at 50 zloty

Polmos Lublin vodka distillery announced it will go public at 50 zloty a share, a 20 percent discount to most analyst estimates. At that price, the low end of Polmos' initial range of 45 to 58 zloty, it will raise some 75 million zloty minus IPO-related expenses. Two other firms controlled by Polish businessman Janusz Palikot plan to sell one million existing shares.

The offering, which ends today, was twenty times oversubscribed by retail investors, sources close to the situation said.

Automotive industry

Inter Cars sees 35 pct. sales growth

Inter Cars auto parts distributor expects 35 percent increase in sales this year from last year's figure of 600 million zloty. Chief executive Krzysztof Oleksowicz told PARKIET that his company may benefit from surging imports of used cars from Western Europe.

Poles bought some 800.000 used cars last year alone.

Inter Cars is also considering expansion in Ukraine and in Hungary. It is negotiating a deal to become a motorcycle dealer for an unnamed Western firm.

Building materials

Nowa Gala's offering may price at a premium, company says

Upcoming secondary offering of Ceramika Nowa Gala, a mid-sized ceramic tile manufacturer from Końskie in central Poland, may be sold at a higher price than its market price of 6.75 zloty, an investment banker told PARKIET yesterday.

'We will try to price the offering higher than the existing market price. We've already talked with investors and they say they're interested in Nowa Gala', Grzegorz Leszczyński, the head of IDMSA.PL brokerage said.

Nowa Gala plans to sell 8.2 million new shares to raise funds for a 69 million zloty ceramic tile factory.

The company said earlier it expects net earnings of 27.1 million zloty on sales of PLN 222 upon completion of the new plant next year.

Information technology

Comp reports strong sales, meets earnings target

Warsaw-based encryption device manufacturer Comp SA reported higher fourth quarter profits that met its previous earnings estimates. The company, a part of Prokom Software IT group, said its profits in fiscal 2004 totaled 6.7 million zloty. Sales rose to 61.6 million zloty versus initial forecast of PLN 61 million.

Comp went public in early January after a 20.8 million zloty IPO addressed exclusively to Prokom, Poland's no. 1 software and IT services group.

Its shares are now trading at 40.6 zloty.

Politics

PM doesn't want Hausner to quitPrime minister Marek Belka said he has no plans to fire economy minister Jerzy Hausner a day after the country's economy czar quit ruling Democratic Left Alliance. Some senior SLD politicians have called on Belka to get rid of Hausner after Monday's announcement.