Polish Business Survey
Steel reform plan this month
The treasury is to announce an up-dated programme for reform of the steel sector before the end of this month. The last plan required the sector invest some PLN5bn - PLN7bn of it s own cash which turned out to be totally unrealistic. Plans to consolidate the sector are once more coming to the fore.
Retailers explain debts
Poznań based Market Pozperito is trying to explain a court in its home town how it has managed to run up PLN80m worth of debts to more than 1,500 companies and people. The company is now trying to come to an agreement with its creditors. The problem seems to have originated towards the end of last year when Market Pozperito bought the Sama retail network. Before this purchase the company had a turnover of PLN280.3m but the purchase of these 130 shops resulted in the company reporting a PLN15.3m loss. Market Pozperito now admits that it over extended itself and in particular the cost of sacking 500 people proved to be very expensive.
One of the ways Market Pozperito has tried to calm its creditors is to offer them up to forty percent of a new share issue in the company.
This year forty shops have been closed and the company now has 104 still open although twelve of them in eastern Poland are due for liquidation very soon. Despite these closures the company hopes to be able to open new stores although this will of course depend on coming to an agreement with creditors.
Arkadiusz Majchrzak, MD of the company, believes that some suppliers will be supplying them again in the future and that turnover this year should be the same as last year.
Beer back on track
Results for beer drinking for the month of August have shown that 1.7bn litres of beer were consumed in the first eight months of this year, a 7.8 percent on last year. If all goes as expected there should be a nine percent increase by the end of the year over 1999.
In August 280m litres of beer were sold, 40m litres more than last year. This was a record month, although of course this was to be expected. July this year was particularly weak due to the rainy weather. Monthly beer sales are now expected to tail off until the end of the year.
No opposition to fuel merger
Nafta Polska, the State owned fuel privatisation organisation has stated that it has no opinion as to the recent proposition to amalgamate the Gdańsk Refinery into fuel giant PKN. Yesterday Gdańsk Refinery boss, Wojciech Żurawik, was unwilling to comment on this proposal although it has been rumoured for some time that his company was seeking to be included in PKN.
Privatisation advisors wanted
The treasury has now been waiting for three weeks to receive offers from consulting companies to advise on the privatisation of 47 small and medium sized enterprises from six provinces. The World Bank is financing two such projects to privatise small companies with a turnover of less than EUR6m.
Radisson-SAS to open in Warsaw
The US-Scandinavian hotel chain Radisson-SAS is planning to open a five star hotel in Warsaw in 2002 and claims that it is weighing up other options in Poland.
Radisson-SAS has been present on the Polish market for eight years with a four star hotel in the centre of Szczecin. It has long talked about a Warsaw hotel and the chance to do something seems to have gone ahead when the US based Hilton announced that it was withdrawing from its scheme on the corner of ul. Grzybowska and Jana Pawła II in the capital. The consortium of Skanska and Portman then sought another operator and this month signed a contract with Radisson SAS.
Evelyn de Glass from the Brussels office of Radisson-SAS said that the company had signed a contract for a 330 room hotel and a second apart-hotel in Warsaw.
She added that the apartments are designed for hotel guests who want to stay longer in the capital. Other attractions are to include conference rooms, restaurants and a fitness club.
The company was unwilling to comment on the costs of these investments, although it is known that the hotel will cost around PLN280m to build.
The group claims to be seeking other plots in Poland. Cities mentioned include Poznań, Wrocław and Kraków. All of these hotels would be similar to the one in Szczecin which has 369 rooms and a rate of DEM270-DEM300 per night. Occupany rates in Szczecin hover between 50-60 percent.