Polish Business Survey
Bourse: another poor performance
Despite a good performance in the US on Monday, Warsaw continued going in the wrong direction deepening the pessimism of investors and analysts. The general consensus is still that the WIG index will hit 17,800.
Although it would be fair to say that yesterday s falls do not represent a great deal compared to movements over the entire year, it must be pointed out that supply is greater than demand as investors try to cut their losses. Fortunately panic has not yet set in.
Cegielski tries for PLN70m boost
This year Poznań based Cegielski will have a PLN70m boost to its capitalisation. The treasury, which still owns the company outright, is to issue shares which it will offer to the the Gdynia and Szczecin shipyards as well as the Finnish Wartfil and German MAN. Funds raised in this way will finance a new ship engine assembly line.
Ceramics almost in court
Ceramika Paradyż has accused ceramic tile producer Opoczno of unfair competition concerning press advertisements which claim that the former produces goods of poor quality. Unless an agreement is reached the matter could be settled in court.
Get more from the bourse
The German ZEW research organisation based in Mannheim has found that Poland and Hungary have the best developed financial markets in Central and Eastern Europe. Nonetheless international banks report that in Poland and the Czech Republic companies use fewer loans and invest with their own resources. ZEW considers that this is because of a lack of attractive financial instruments in the EU candidate countries, and those that there are, do not compete for clients.
Due to the lack of credits, or willingness to use them, indebtedness is lower than in the United Kingdom for example where 70 percent of investments are financed by outside credits, in Poland it is less than 50 percent.
Nonetheless analysts seem to consider that this is too high and advise Polish companies to raise capital on the stock markets where in the opinion of ZEW there could still be a lot of room for manoeuvre.
Western investors still do not feel comfortable in Central European stock markets and that is why companies have to provide better balance sheets, analyses and additional publications which would enable investors to obtain more knowledge of the company and its financial condition.
SLS gets more time
The treasury has given Saint Louis Sucre more time to negotiate in its bid to obtain Śląska Spółka Cukrowej. The reason for the extension is the price and the form of payment. The deadline has been extended to 20 August.
Internet virus goes on
A number of companies quoted on the Warsaw bourse have seen the internet as a way of saving them from flagging sales and have turned into IT companies whilst no-one else is looking. No doubt they are aiming at the success of the likes of Prokom, Softbank, ComArch, ComputerLand or Optimus. AS Motors may yet convince us that the internal combustion engine has a lot in common with a search engine when one is driving down the information super highway. Their new model, 7bulls.com, took receipts of PLN0.6m last year - no doubt it could be better.
Mill privatises subsidiaries
The Grupa Kapitałowo-Inwestycyjna, belonging to the Huta Katowice steelworks, has sold its share in 19 companies. This year a further five companies belonging to the steel mill will be privatised and then function as a financial holding company.