News Parkiet

Metals

Government likely to retain control

over Impexmetal

Private businessman Roman Karkosik has virtually no chance to outvote Polish government at the upcoming shareholders? meeting of Impexmetal, a former communist-era metals trading group. Mr. Karkosik and his allies have registered 38 percent of shares at the October 29 meeting. Treasury Ministry has 36 percent voting stake, but Impexmetal subsidiaries, with another 23 percent of the votes, are likely to side with the government in an attempt to stave off hostile takeover of Warsaw-based company.

Civil engineering

Investors don?t buy Mostostal promises

Shares of Mostostal Export rose just 1.3 percent to close at 1.5 zloty after Monday?s announcement of yet another letter of intent to build 12-million dollar office building in the Russian city of Novosibirsk. Mostostal has a history of signing numerous ?letters of intent? with Russian clients that often fail to generate any sales. The company blames tighter financing terms in Russia for the delays.

Food industry

Graal files for IPO

Canned fish manufacturer Graal SA has filed its IPO prospectus with the Polish Securities and Exchanges Commission yesterday. Sources say the company may raise between 25 and 30 million zloty in an IPO managed by IDMSA.PL brokerage.

?We plan to use our IPO proceeds for investments, including the takeover of Syrena Royal, another fish products company?, chief executive Bogusław Kowalski said.

Mr. Kowalski owns 87 percent of Graal. The company has already sold 5.5 million zloty worth of new shares in a pre-IPO deal in May. Annual fish consumption per capita in Poland is less than half of that in Western Europe,

Mr. Kowalski said, adding that he expects Graal to retain its 22 percent market share. Founded fourteen years ago, Graal reported sales of 128 million zloty ($38 million). However, its margins totaled just 0.85 percent.

Financial services

BRE Leasing earnings double to PLN 9.1 million

BRE Bank?s commercial leasing company reported 122 percent increase in earnings before taxes yesterday despite the competition from used cars imported from Western Europe. BRE Leasing, one of top Polish leasing firms, said it earned 9.1 million zloty in the nine months to October versus PLN 4.4 million last year. Overall volume of new leasing contracts rose 51 percent to PLN 935 million. Real estate accounted for about a third of new leasing contracts by volume, BRE Leasing said. Its main business, leasing new cars to corporate customers, suffered because of increased car imports from Western Europe.

BRE Leasing, which is controlled by BRE Bank together with CommerzLeasing und Immobilien, may list its shares on the Warsaw Stock Exchange sometime next year.

Chemicals

Zachem hurt by oil prices

State owned Zakłady Chemiczne Zachem chemicals group reported a loss of PLN 12.7 million in the eight months to August because of runaway oil prices and rising cost of metallurgical coke. Zachem, which makes specialty

oil-based chemicals, admits that its losses would be even higher if it wasn?t for weak US dollar. Chief executive Henryk Nierebiński explains that euro-denominated exports account for half of Zachem?s 930-million zloty sales, while most purchases are made in US currency. Zachem is slated for privatization after the planned transfer to Nafta Polska, a government agency that sells stakes in state-owned companies.

Light industry

Sell-off at Sanwil continues

Two key shareholders of Sanwil S.A., a small manufacturer of artificial leather and upholstery sold several hundred shares in recent days to raise money for investments on the IPO market. Mr. Adam Buchajski, who owns 60 percent of Przemyśl-based company, sold at least 130.000 shares, or 3.9 percent of the total. Another Sanwil investor, Robert Bibrowski, may have sold almost 15 per

Pharmaceuticals

Bioton to go public next year

Bioton SA insulin maker will offer its shares to the public in an IPO early next year, company officials said yesterday. Warsaw-based firm, which has 7.2 percent market share in Poland after Eli Lilly and Novartis, plans to sell up to 16 million new shares to pay for clinical trials of a new insulin-based drug. ?Right now we are at a pre-clinical trials stage?. We are hoping to start making new drug in six years?, senior executive Henryk Dąbrowski said. Bioton, which is controlled by Prokom Investments, an investment group of Polish businessman Ryszard Krauze, has annual sales of just over 100 million zloty. It reported earnings of 8 million zloty last year.