News Parkiet

Equity markets

Rate hike unlikely to affect stocks, analysts say

Modest interest rate hike is unlikely to have any major impact on the WSE, equity analysts told PARKIET before today?s meeting of the Monetary Policy Council. The MPC is widely expected to raise interest rates by 0.25 to 0.5 percent. The few sectors that could suffer from higher interest rates include property developers and other companies with too much debt on their balance sheets.

Venture capital

MCI to start venture cap fund

in the Czech Republic

Poland?s sole publicly traded venture capital fund, Wrocław-based MCI Management, has announced plans to launch a new fund to begin investments in the Czech Republic and other parts of Central Europe. The fund, to be called TechVenture 2.0 will make investments of up to 1 million euros in local IT, Internet and mobile firms.

Banking

Deutsche Bank makes a bid

to delist Polish subsidiary

Deutsche Bank AG, Europe?s second largest Bank has offered to buy out minority shareholders of its Polish unit Deutsche Bank PBC as it plans to delist the company.

Deutsche Bank offered 1.64 zloty per share for the 4.8 percent of DB PBC it doesn?t already own. The stake is worth approximately 26.3 million zloty, or 6.9 million US dollars. Deutsche Bank?s offer represents a small discount over DB PBC?s closing price of 1.77 zloty on Friday.

German bank said it will accept offers from minority shareholders though its Polish broker DB Securities between July 5 and August 3.

Insurance

PZU sees lower earnings in 2004

Polish insurer PZU expects an 11.4 percent decline in net earnings this year, the company reported in a report to shareholders published before today?s meeting. Poland?s largest insurer posted a record 1.51 billion zloty ($397 million) earnings last year. This year?s group earnings may fall by 170 million zloty because of lower income from investments.

Insurance premiums collected by Grupa PZU last year totaled PLN 12.35 billion thanks to stronger sales of life insurance products. For this year, PZU is planning a 2.8 percent increase of life insurance premiums to PLN 5.27 billion. Premiums from property insurance could shrink as much as 0.9 percent to PLN 7.15 billion because of weaker sales of car insurance products.