News Parkiet

Brokerage industry

Elimar brokers charged over margin loans

CEO of Elimar brokerage house and the head of company?s Warsaw unit have been charged with negligence after the firm lost 6.3 million zloty making risky margin loans to several retail investors. The two are accused of either approving, or knowing of six-million zloty loans made to its top eight Warsaw daytraders, who subsequently lost the money after investing in Elektrim S.A. The broker didn?t call in the loans even after the stock plunged and its clients were no longer able to make their payments.

Elimar?s clients were eventually sold to DM BOŚ, Poland?s leading retail brokerage house.

Equity markets

PARKIET helps promote

Polish stock market

With economic recovery under way, Polish corporations often find they need more equity to finance new investments and to increase their working capital. In response, PARKIET has organized a series of business conferences that popularize the stock market as the source of new funding, telling potential candidates for IPOs about the advantages of getting listed on Warsaw Stock Exchange. The first conference will be held in Krakow on June 22nd. Five other, similar events will follow.

Breweries

Browary Górnośląskie

on sale once again

Bankruptcy administrator of Browary Górnośląskie, a regional brewery from Silesia is once again trying to sell assets of the failed company. Court-appointed administrator has lowered his asking price from 30 to 15 million zloty after eleven previous attempts to sell the company failed when no bidders turned up to buy the plant.

Browary Górnośląskie went under in 1998. Former state-owned firm is still working at full capacity and has since repaid almost a quarter of its 80 million zloty debt.

Petrochemicals

Orlen to cut 1400 jobs

PKN Orlen oil refinery has announced voluntary workforce reduction plan. Poland?s largest petrochemicals firm will offer severance packages worth up to 69.000 zloty ($18.700) to employees qualified for early retirement program. The firm has enough cash to cut 1400 jobs through early retirements.

PKN Orlen employs about 6200 staff at its main refinery and corporate headquarters in Płock.

Information Technology

GBG seeking new IT backoffice system

Górnośląski Bank Gospodarczy, a regional bank from Upper Silesia will be looking for new IT backoffice system sometime this year. GBG, which was sold to private businessman Leszek Czarnecki on Wednesday by HBV Group?s Polish subsidiary is one of the few Polish banks without a centralized backoffice system. Industry sources estimate the application will cost as much as 50 million zloty (13.7 million dollars).

Western software and IT suppliers, including Accenture, KPMG and IBM are said to be the most likely winners of GBG contract.

Equity markets

Inter Cars plans 2Q IPO in Warsaw

Inter Cars auto parts supplier has announced plans to list its stock on the Warsaw bourse sometime during the second quarter of this year. The firm has already hired CDM Pekao broker to underwrite the issue and says it will file its prospectus with Polish stock market authorities by the end of March.

Inter Cars itself has enough money to finance its expansion until next year, sources close to the company told PARKIET yesterday. The group wants to sell 32 percent of outstanding stock controlled by NFI Fortuna and Fund.1 private equity funds.

Founded twelve years ago by two Warsaw businessmen, Inter Cars has annual sales of some 450 million zloty ($122 million) supplying auto parts to independent auto repair shops. The company estimates it has 12 percent market share of new car parts segment.