News Parkiet

Privatization

Miller picks new Treasury Minister

Left-leaning OPZZ union official Zbigniew Kaniewski has been nominated as new privatization minister, the head of SLD coalition government said yesterday. Polish prime minister Leszek Miller said he expects Kaniewski to speed up privatization of chemical and power industry companies still in state hands. "I?ll do everything to meet our privatization goal?, Kaniewski said. The government has approved privatization target of 8.8 billion zloty in state-held assets for this year to finance budget deficit.

Miller?s choice was criticized by opposition politicians and economists, who note that Mr. Kaniewski, who spent the last twelve years as Sejm backbencher has no virtually experience in either business or privatization.

Kaniewski, who hails from Miller?s home city of Łódź will take over from Piotr Czyżewski, who was fired last week over privatization delays. Czyżewski became Poland?s third privatization minister to lose his job in a year.

Equity market

WIG20 down in heavy trading

WIG20 blue chip index plunged 3.2 percent yesterday after three weeks of relative calm. Benchmark index was down 54 points to 1620 from Tuesday?s closing, led by Telekomunikacja Polska and banking stocks.

Daily volume has nearly doubled to 520 million zloty.

Banking & finances

PKO BP can?t wait for IPO

Bank PKO BP wants to sell up to 35 percent of its shares without government assistance to speed up the process, CEO Andrzej Podsiadło said on Wednesday. The bank is still waiting for privatization sale by the Polish Treasury Ministry.

??We could write the prospectus ourselves, price and list our stock on the Warsaw bourse?, Podsiadło said.

Net earnings of Poland?s largest retail bank rose 16.6 percent to 1.226 billion ($331 million) last year, Podsiadło said during yesterday?s press conference. Total assets of state-owned savings bank rose 3.3 percent to 84.7 billion zloty.

Information Technology

IBM Polska sees 20 pct sales growth this year

Polish IBM subsidiary expects 20 percent sales growth this year after posting 36 percent increase in net revenue in 2003, general manager Dariusz Fabiszewski said yesterday without disclosing specific sales figures. Sources close to the company say sales last year totaled approximately 240 million dollars.

Banking & finances

Kredyt Bank is not for sale, KBC says

Belgian bancassurance group KBC has no intention of selling its main Polish subsidiary, publicly traded Kredyt Bank (KB) - Andre Bergen told PARKIET yesterday. Senior KBC executive says Kredyt Bank will break even this year after losing more than one billion zloty ($270 million) in 2003. Warsaw-based lender was forced to write off bad loans for many of its clients.

KBC has approximately 81.4 percent of Kredyt Bank. The Belgians have spent a total of 660 million euro to buy KB.