News Parkiet

Power industry

PAK offering postponed until Wednesday

Polish government and Elektrim power and telecoms group have agreed to postpone a key vote on planned equity increase of ZE PAK power plant until Wednesday because of last-minute dispute over valuation and the purchase of local coal mine by PAK. Media magnate Zygmunt Solorz-Żak, who owns Elektrim, has agreed to pay 100 million euro for new shares of ZE PAK.

Statistics

Polish economy slows down

December retail sales were up just 2.8 percent because of lower car sales, Polish Main Office of Statistics (GUS) said, renewing fears among economists that Polish GNP growth may be about to slow down. Also yesterday, government economy czar Jerzy Hausner said he expects higher January unemployment rate, at 19.4 to 19.5 percent, up from last month?s 19.1 percent.

Chemicals

Ciech IPO six times oversubscribed

Initial Public Offering of Ciech chemicals trading group was more than six times oversubscribed by pension funds and other institutional investors on the first day of its 275-million zloty IPO ($88.77 million), sources close to the situation told PARKIET yesterday. Warsaw-based Ciech said over the weekend it plans to sell more than 12 million shares at 24 zloty each, at the top of its initial IPO pricing range of 20 to 24 zloty. Stockbrokers expected Ciech to price its IPO at around 28 zloty per share.

Private equity

NFI Piast to turn into private equity vehicle

NFI Piast privatization fund new plans to turn itself into a private equity investment vehicle despite opposition of dissenting minority shareholders, who blocked a new stock offering backed by its CEO Paweł Gieryński just days ago. Gieryński, who doubles as the head of KP Konsorcjum, a company that manages Piast?s assets, owns nearly 10 percent of the fund. He notes that Piast, which has market capitalization of around 20 million zloty trades at less than 90 grosze, a massive discount to its 1.33 zloty per share book value.

Founded in mid-1990?s to manage the sale of various state-owned companies, Piast now has about 22.8 million shares outstanding.