News Parkiet

Steel industry

Donbass group takes over Warsaw shell company

Ukrainian steel magnates controlling Donbass Industrial Association have taken over the board of Pekpol S.A., former supplier of meat processing equipment. Sergey Taruta and Alexander Philipenko, two of Ukraine?s wealthiest individuals sitting on Pekpol?s board are said to be interested in using publicly traded shell company to take over Huta Częstochowa steel plant in southern Poland. Wednesday?s meeting has approved plans for several new stock issues that would raise Pekpol?s initial equity from 6.6 up to 380 million zloty while issuing eight-year corporate bonds worth as much as PLN 400 million.

Pekpol?s shareholders have also decided to change company?s name to Arksteel S.A., reflecting recent ownership changes.

Equity markets

Finance Ministry publishes last-minute capital gains tax regulations

Polish Finance Ministry has delayed publication of detailed regulations of new capital gains taxes, in effect since January until December 29, 2003, giving brokerage houses very little time to adopt their IT systems to new laws.

In early November Polish parliament has approved 19 percent tax on all stock market gains. By law, Polish brokers will have to calculate capital gains of individual clients, mailing tax statements before April tax deadline.

Pension funds

Pension fund payments below target

Money transfers to OFE private pension funds by ZUS social security administration totaled just 10.27 billion zloty in 2003, or one billion zloty below initial target set by the Polish government. ZUS, which collects social security payments of some ten million OFE members says the discrepancy is due to lower macroeconomic and labor market projections.

Construction

EI to sell Bauma in 2004

Enterprise Investors private equity group is looking for buyers for its 57 percent stake in Bauma formwork manufacturer next year. US-backed funds own 30 percent of Bauma?s voting stock.

?Venture capital funds usually exit their investments after about five years. EI has been with us for nearly seven years?, says Bauma CEO Andrzej Kozłowski.

Hotels

DM Millennium cuts Orbis rating to ?reduce?

Dom Maklerski Millennium brokerage house has downgraded Poland?s national hotel chain Orbis S.A. to ?reduce? from ?neutral? despite strong earnings in recent quarters. Millennium analyst Katarzyna Perzak has upgraded her target price from 19.7 to 22 zloty per share. Perzak predicts Orbis earnings will decline to 45 million zloty next year following the acquisition of lower margin Hekon hotel chain. She also notes Orbis stock has been trading consistently above her target price, closing unchanged at 27.7 zloty on December 31.

Information Technology

Ster-Projekt lowers sales forecast

Publicly traded IT services group Ster-Projekt S.A. has reduced this year?s sales forecast to 305 million zloty after the company failed to secure key contract to build a new data center for Telekomunikacja Polska. Ster-Projekt originally said its sales would reach PLN 370 million.

Earnings forecast remained unchanged at 10 million zloty. Ster-Projekt said it has completed several high-margin contracts with other clients.

Information Technology

I&B System plans another stock issue

Invar & Biurosystem hardware supplier has announced plans for a new secondary offering after raising an estimated 6.8 million zloty in mid-December. The last issue, priced at one zloty per share was moderately oversubscribed, prompting the company to seek new funds on the market.

Proceeds are to be used to pay for large-scale contracts co-financed with EU funds.

Invar & Biurosystem, a local company from Łódź installs IT hardware and industrial control systems.