News Parkiet

Politics

Business leaders skeptical about Belka

Polish business leaders have mixed feelings about prime minister Marek Belka before today's vote of confidence at the parliament. Several members of the Entrepreneurship Council, which represents the heads of major business organizations said they'd vote against Mr. Belka if they had the chance to do so.

The parliament is expected to extend Mr. Belka's mandate until the spring of next year by a slim majority of several deputies who are nominally independent after leaving the ranks of ruling SLD-UP coalition government.

Media

WSiP reports nine-month earnings

WSiP textbook publisher reported preliminary nine-month earnings of 29.2 million zloty weeks before the planned stock sale on the Warsaw bourse. Sales of the state-owned firm were down about 3 percent to PLN 194 million. Full nine-month and 3Q earnings report will be published on November 15.

Camping gear

Euromark buys Polish outdoor

equipment brand

Euromark Polska, an outdoors equipment supplier bought Poland's most popular camping gear brand Alpinus yesterday for an undisclosed amount. Founded over a decade ago by investors from the UK, Euromark has been negotiating the purchase from BWE, a local bank that took over assets ADD, the owner of Alpinus.

Euromark now says it will relaunch Alpinus, a high-end brand that complements its own Campus line in the spring of 2005.

Alpinus has an 85 percent brand recognition in Poland despite the financial problems of its parent company, which filed for bankruptcy early this year.

Telecommunications

ATM down 13 pct. two weeks

after the IPO

Fiber optics data carrier ATM SA fell almost 13 percent since its heavily oversubscribed IPO two weeks ago despite the absence of any negative news from Warsaw-based company. Vice CEO Tadeusz Czichon blames the decline on retail investors who are raising cash for the much larger privatization IPO of PKO BP bank later this month. Mr. Czichon, himself a big shareholder of ATM SA, says there won't be any negative surprises when the company releases its third quarter earnings

ATM, which operates Atman fiber optics network connecting major business districts in Warsaw, is expecting net earnings of 5.1 million zloty on sales of PLN 94 million this year.

Food industry

Nestle sells Polish chocolate unit

Shares of cookie and snack manufacturer Jutrzenka rose 4.8 percent to close at 46.1 zloty, the highest in over five years, after yesterday's announcement of a preliminary agreement to buy Nestle chocolate factory in Poznań. Jutrzenka bought Goplana chocolate brand along with Nestle's production plant for an undisclosed amount. The Swiss group also owns chocolate bar and waffle factory in Kargowa.

Industry sources estimate that Goplana generates annual sales of PLN 100 to 120 million versus Jutrzenka's PLN 166 million last year. As part of the deal Jutrzenka promised not to cut employment at Goplana for the next fourteen months.

Media

FON to enter newspaper

publishing business

FON SA, a tiny radio station operator from Częstochowa may try to list a Polish daily published by UK's AIB Investments on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The group has entered into a partnership with Washington, DC-based AIB Investments, announcing plans to launch a joint publishing business, to be called Życie Publishing. Although the two AIB firms won't say if they are related, sources close to the situation say that UK fund, which owns right-wing "Życie" national daily may take its investment public along with FON.

Energy

PEP to invest in wind farms

Polish Energy Partners, an energy company that specializes in outsourcing projects for large industrial users, plans to build several wind farms to fill in a market niche selling energy generated by renewable sources. It already owPEP has already filed for IPO on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, seeking regulatory clearance to go public later this year.