News Parkiet

Equity markets

Blue-chip index hits four-year high

WIG20 blue-chip index of Poland's biggest publicly traded companies closed at 1907 points yesterday the highest since September 2000, after climbing 2.51 percent thanks to strong gains by Telekomunikacja Polska phone company, resource and banking stocks. Market watchers expect the rally to continue, with some analysts saying that WIG20 could reach as high as 2000 points in the coming weeks, driven by stronger corporate earnings.

Chemicals

Śnieżka to open another paint factory

in Ukraine

FFiL Śnieżka paint manufacturer has announced plans to open a second production plant in Ukraine despite growing political unrest in that country. Śnieżka's existing paint factory already controls 15 percent of the local market, generating sales of 32.6 million zloty after nine months of this year.

'We have 50 percent market share there in terms of emulsion paint sales', chief executive Piotr Mikrut told PARKIET. 'It's just like Poland 15 years ago', he added, commenting on future prospects of the Ukrainian market.

Equity markets

SEC to launch new reporting system

Polish Securities and Exchanges Commission will start a new electronic document reporting system for publicly traded companies in January 2005. The new application, called ESPI, developed by SEC IT department will replace obsolete, e-mail based 'Emitent' system.

Power industry

Fortum buys Częstochowa heating company

Finland's Fortum Power and Heat Oy has agreed to pay 28 million zloty for an 85 percent stake in Przedsiębiorstwo Energetyczne Systemy Ciepłownicze (PESC), a Częstochowa, southern Poland based district heating company from the Polish government. It has promised to invest 27.5 million zloty in PESC within five years of the deal. Money-losing Częstochowa company has annual heat sales of about 780 gigawatt hours and sales of about 95 million zloty (17 million euros).

Fortum already operates district heating systems in 22 Polish cities.