Polish Business Survey
The Polmos name is well known in Poland as a producer of vodkas and other spirits. Following the collapse of socialism the company was split up into various pieces and named after the city where an individual unit was situated. The State is now trying to privatise these companies but because of problems associated with dropping domestic sales and legal difficulties over the registered name for foreign sales investors have shown an interest in only the companies from Poznań, Białystok and Zielona Góra. Polmos Lublin, Polmos Bielsko-Biala and Polmos Łańcut, for example, will be harder to sell.
A company called Jabłonna is hoping to purchase the Zielona Góra plant and is considering a purchase of either the Łańcut, Lublin or Bielsko-Biała plants. Jabłonna should not have to pay more than USD70m in order to get a ten percent share of the market. The group has set this share of the domestic market as its target, indeed the Zielona Góra plant alone supplies some 9.5 percent of Poland s hard liquor consumption. Over the past year the theoretical capitalisation value of the Polmos brands has dropped by around thirty percent due to the aforementioned difficulties meaning a significant loss for the treasury when it does at last make the sell off.
French bid for sugar concern
The French Saint Louis Sucre is the only bidder left interested in purchasing the Silesian sugar concern Śląskiej Spółki Cukrowej following the German Sudzucker dropping out of the race. The French have agreed with the State treasury that they have until 4 May to agree upon the social, agricultural and investment strategy that they will follow.
Open skies bad news for LOT
With increasing globalisation, agreements between airlines may no longer be sufficient, despite even closer co-operation between different companies. The opinion of Lufthansa is that mergers and take-overs will be soon be the order of the day. An open skies policy does not meet with the whole-hearted approval of Zbigniew Kiszczak, deputy MD of LOT, who says that Western airlines have had more time to prepare themselves for liberalisation and have also received State aid. He does not try to hide that despite having found a strategic investor LOT s situation is bad.
According to EU expert, Professor Rigas Doganis, LOT must above all develop its own hub, which would be Warsaw s Okęcie airport, and negotiate new agreements with other carriers and not just limit itself to the Qualiflyer alliance.
Belgians buy share of power station
The Belgian concern Tractebel has bought a 25 percent share in the Połaniec power station in south eastern Poland for EUR87.5m. During the next ten years the Belgians will invest EUR339m. Modernisation of the power station will be financed by a capitalisation increase which will cost the investor over EUR60m.
A ninety eight percent share of Tractebel was recently purchased by the French giant Lyonnais des Eaux. Currently 65 percent of TractebelŐs investments are outside of Belgium.
Number of dailies drop
The number of newspapers in Poland continues to fall and analysts think that as far as regional publications are concerned there will be one, at most two, dailies in each region. In the last three years alone three nationals have disappeared: Sztandar Młodych, Kurier Polski and Ekspress Wieczorny.
The three market leaders are Gazeta Wyborcza, Rzeczpospolita and Super Ekspress. The first national daily has enjoyed a lot of regional success because of its local supplements, the second is popular with subscribers who are mainly interested in its legal pages which they keep and the third is a specific British style scandal sheet which has no immediate competition on the Polish market. As most revenues come from advertising, it is these papers that attract it because they are read by people who have the most disposable income. Papers like the Catholic Nasz Dziennik which are read by older people can offer less to the agencies who are placing the ads.