News parkiet

Equity markets

PKO BP stock sale draws new investors

Stockbrokers are expecting another busy season ahead of this month?s IPO of PKO BP bank, the biggest privatization sale in years. Several major brokerage houses polled by PARKIET say they already see signs of interest from new investors. CDM Pekao?s Maria Raszdorf says the broker is opening up to 900 new accounts per week, up from around 200 to 300 hundred earlier this year. Others, like Dom Maklerski BZ WBK?s Ryszard Czerwiński, are expecting last-minute line-ups before the 6 billion zloty IPO.

Retail investors will be offered PKO BP shares worth between 2 and 2.4 billion zloty ($560-670 million).

According to WSE data, Polish investors had 800.000 accounts at the end of June. Most of these, some 85 percent of the total, were inactive, meaning there was no trading activity over the last six months.

Currency market

Poland may join ERM2 next year

Poland could join European Union?s Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM2) as early as next year if it really wants to met the euro?s fiscal criteria by 2007, senior Finance Ministry official told PARKIET on Friday. ?Logically, if we are to comply with these fiscal criteria in 2007, we could enter ERM2 in 2005?, Jacek Krzyślak, the head of Financial Policy Department said.

Information technology

Prokom 1H loss widens

Six-month loss of Prokom Software, Poland?s largest information technology company, almost doubled to PLN 7 million ($1.95 million) after a 3.2 million zloty tax claim against Gdynia-based firm. Prokom auditor Ernst & Young notes that Prokom subsidiary Epsilio, a niche software house, has assets of just 0.6 million zloty. Its book value, including goodwill, stands at over 25 million zloty.

Banking

Cooperative banks won?t sell BGŻ stake

Rural cooperative banks holding a combined 30 percent stake in Bank Gospodarki Żywnościowej say they?ll probably ignore Rabobank?s bid for their shares at least until BGŻ goes public. Just one of the three cooperative bank associations needs the cash right away and might be enticed to sell to Rabobank, industry sources say.