News Parkiet

Power industry

Solorz-Żak may seek to consolidate energy holdings

Polsat TV founder Zygmunt Solorz-Żak may try to build a vertical energy holding that would include ZE PAK power plant, Enea power grid operator and several coal mines from Konin area, sources told PARKIET recently. Polish businessman is reportedly planning to spend about 200 million euros to consolidate the three into a single group.

Insurance

PZU to set up new insurance group

Poland's biggest insurer, government-controlled Grupa PZU, may turn into a holding company before next year's IPO on the Warsaw bourse. Under new corporate governance program, PZU's property and life insurance units would be managed by a new firm, to be called PZU Holding. Separate firms, also part of PZU Holding, would control real estate, asset portfolio, mutual fund and pension fund units.

Utilities

Wrocław to pick privatization advisor in MPEC sale

Authorities in the south-western city of Wrocław are about to pick investment advisor to handle privatization sale of local heating utility. The city retains 60 percent stake in publicly traded MPEC Wrocław, but it now says it needs the money to pay for a new bridge across Oder river.

One of the bidders, a consortium of BDM PKO BP brokerage together with Germany's Raiffeisen Investment and Oleś Rodzynkiewicz law firm reportedly offered to do the deal for PLN 0.33 million plus 2 percent of the funds raised through the sale. The other Austrian investment bank Sal. Oppenheim and ABC Consulting accounting firm set its price at PLN 0.3 million plus 2.5 percent of MPEC sale.

Telecommunications

Szeptel sees record earnings

Local phone company Szeptel SA is expecting record earnings this year after reporting third-quarter profits of PLN 0.8 million on sales that were more than double last year's level. Szeptel, which originally offered wireline services in Łomża district in north-eastern Poland, posted record quarterly revenues of PLN 10.2 million, a third of that from sales of high-margin call center services and premium rate calls. The company added about 1100 subscribers to its 21.000 clients. It also signed up almost 300 new DSL subscribers.

Szeptel launched its own call center services in mid-September, opening a new facility in its home town of Szepietowo. It plans to hire as many as 360 telemarketing staff.

Privatization funds

CA IB group to buy three NFI funds

Bank Austria's CA IB Fund Management has made a friendly, 500 million zloty ($147 million) takeover bid for three publicly traded privatization funds now held by Grupa PZU insurance company. CA IB's bid for all outstanding shares of Drugi NFI, NFI Progress and NFI Kwiatkowski values the three funds at approximately 476 million zloty, below their combined net asset value. It said it would pay another 29 million zloty for PTU NFI Management, an investment firm that manages the three funds.

CA IB says it plans to turn one of the three into a private equity fund, investing around 150 million zloty in smaller Polish firms. Bank Austria's Polish investment firm has already completed one similar transaction, taking over NFI Hetman privatization fund. Hetman was subsequently sold to Eastbridge consumer goods retailer, providing a backdoor for WSE listing for some of its assets.

Monetary policy

RPP leaves interest rates unchanged

Central bank-led Monetary Policy Council (RPP) left its main interest rates unchanged for the second month in a row yesterday, with the prime interest rate at 6.5 percent. The decision was in line with market expectations and had virtually no impact on the market, unlike some of RPP's previous surprises earlier this year.

Information Technology

Prokom gets an 'accumulate' rating from

DI BREDom Inwestycyjny BRE Banku issued a research note telling investors to 'accumulate' shares of Poland's biggest tech stock, Prokom Software IT services group. DI BRE"s Witold Samborski says Prokom is worth 181 zloty per share, versus yesterday's close of PLN 131 zloty despite the postponement of several key contracts and the loss on investment in Ster-Projekt, another IT firm. DI BRE expects Prokom to report unconsolidated earnings of PLN 26 million, or just 1.8 zloty per share. Next year's earnings could rise to as much as 117 million zloty ($34.4 million), DI BRE says.