Poland/Enterprises/Banks/IPO
Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) – The IPO of PKO BP, one of Poland’s largest banks by deposits, proved to be advantageous to all parties concerned. Investors earned quite well on the first day of trading on Wednesday. The issue price rose at the opening of the session 13 percent to PLN 23.2 (EUR 5.4), and at the end of the day the shares traded at PLN 24.5. The market capitalisation of the bank amounted to PLN 24.5 billion, and was the highest among all Polish listed companies.
Shares of PKO BP worth PLN 2.779 billion changed hands constituting 85.3 percent of the whole volume of trade. ‘The Polish stock exchange GPW will be noticed by some investors. Thanks to PKO BP the capitalisation of GPW is comparable to the Vienna stock exchange. This should result in new capital inflow’, Grzegorz Zawada, Erste analyst said. In his opinion, the IPO of PKO BP will encourage individual investors to buy on GPW. 140 thousand private investors subscribed for the shares of the bank, an amount comparable with the boom at the end of the 1990ies.
‘The Treasury Minister has a very serious proof that privatisation via stock exchange and many small investors may succeed’ Grzegorz Zawada added. Andrzej Podsiadlo, PKO BP CEO promised investors not only rising share price but also dividend of 20-44 percent. ‘Puls Biznesu’ learnt from anonymous sources that world’s largest funds which have not invested in emerging markets yet, were buying shares of the Polish bank.
(PLN 1 = EUR 0.235)