For several months already, the management and owners of Prochnik, the listed clothes producers, have promised to change the company. On February 20th, the restructuring plan was supposed to be presented. The changes were supposed to help the company get out of the red. Last year, Prochnik had PLN 3.4m (EUR 952,000) of net loss against PLN 31m of sales. For the last week, the company’s representatives have been unavailable. Przemyslaw Andrzejak, one of Prochnik’s shareholders and Mikolaj Habit, deputy CEO of the company, did not answer the phones. Jacek Pudlo, Prochnik CEO, took up the receiver, but he said he would call back later, hanged up and did not call. Why hasn’t the strategy been presented? When would it be?
In addition, Robert Serafinski, one of the shareholders, resigned from being a member of the supervisory board.
“I have also sold part of my shares but I don’t want to comment on this”, Robert Serafinski said.
In the last four reports, Prochnik members of the supervisory board said they had sold nearly 441,000 shares, or 0.48 percent of the capital.
“Bearish market could make shareholders sell out their shares. Unless Prochnik gets capital, it may be acquired. The company needs strategy and an investor. Today, it’s hard to say how it will look like in 2-3 years. Today, the strength of this brand is only due to tradition”, Rafal Salwa, an independent analyst said.
In November 2007, a group of investors from Lodz appeared in Prochnik’s shareholder’s structure. They became members of the supervisory board and promised to reactivate the company. They had many ideas. A new plant was planned, as well as splitting production and distribution or shifting part of production from Poland to Romania and Ukraine. Shareholders and management wanted to change the image of the brand, shops and offer. Prochnik was supposed to sell not only male coats but also female and teenager clothes.
(PLN 1 = EUR 0.280)