Polish Business Survey
Target PKO BP
It would appear that following the investment of the Belgian KBC in insurer Warta, entrepreneur Jan Kulczyk is again trying to build a banking and insurance group. This time the target is the soon to be privatised bank, PKO BP.
Well paved
Libet from Libiąż in Malopolska,one of the largest producers of paying stones on the domestic market, may well have found an investor prepared to take a large percentage of the forthcoming share issue and a majority stake in the company.
Grzegorz Gołaski, MD of Libet is claiming to have spoken to four potential investors from Britain and Germany. The company needs around PLN5m-PLN10m to pay off debts on which the interest alone is PLN6m-PLN7m annually. These debts occurred last year as a result of the construction of a new factory in the Katowice special economic zone. Production capacity of this factory is around 600,000 - 700,000sqm per year.
The company also hopes to invest PLN0.5m in a new production line and PLN1m in a quarry which would free it from relying on other companies for raw materials. Libet is hoping to sell between 1.5m - 1.8m sqm of paving stones this year. The annual requirement for paving stones in the entire country is estimated to be between 20 - 30m sqm.
Fuel investments in Lithuania
The Gdańsk based consortium of Petrobaltik and Energopol have taken a 82 percent share in the Lithuanian AB Geonafta for LIL52m (USD13m) from the government in Vilnius. They have agreed to invest LIL56 (USD14m) in the company. This is the largest Polish investment in its Baltic neighbour, the previous record being held with the USD10m purchase of the Warta glass works .
Geonafta is the largest Lithuanian fuel exploiter drilling 230,000 tons of oil and gas from a field near Klajpeda each year. The new partners will now jointly search for new fields.
The consortium is also hoping to form a group along with other Polish companies, KGHM Polski Miedź and PKN Orlen to drill for oil in the Congo. A 4,500 square kilometre concession has been obtained with four wells in it. Furthermore the company has the right to exploit other materials there such as bitumen and salt. The concession was obtained through the Warsaw based King and King acting as an intermediary. The group will form an alliance with the American Chevron who have been present in the Congo for some time.
Steel consolidation still on the cards
The fact that the treasury has accepted the principle of foreign companies investing in the subsidiaries of the Huta Katowice steelworks does not rule out, in the opinion of industry analysts, a future merger of the mill with the HTS works in Kraków.
Some time ago Piotr Janeczki, MD of the HTS plant proposed consolidating the sector although at a cost of abandoning the concept of a new plate mill which would save USD530m.
Several weeks ago Huta Katowice signed an investment contract with the Italian Danieli. The treasury agreed to this but Huta Katowice keeps changing its plans. This agreement allowed Danieli to take 20 percent of subsidiary HK ZOWB with the possibiliby of taking up to forty percent later. Huta Katowice is now negotiating with the EBRD, although it is not clear what share the bank may take.
Conextel wins concession
New Zealand based ConnecTel, registered in Poland as Conextel, last week obtained a licence for data transmission. This licence has already been obtained by Formus Polska and Crowley Data Poland. Other companies hoping to obtain it include Szeptel and the Scandinavian Tele 2.
This would suggest that its investor will shortly be Atlantis which is quoted on the Warsaw stock market. Atlantis, in turn, is to issue shares for a value up to USD100m which its MD, Paweł Obrębski, claims will be taken up by a major international internet concern. If this happens then Atlantis will take up the name of its investor adding the suffix Poland.
The announcement on 9 August that Atlantis intended to change its direction from construction to new technologies had a negative effect on its share price. On 9 August it was quoted at PLN6.9, by 6 October it was PLN3.67.
UMTS documentation from today
From today, those interested in obtaining a UMTS licence can obtain a list of the conditions from the communications ministry. The offer closes at 14:00 on 12 October. Companies that will be spending EUR50,000 on the tender documentation will include the three GSM operators together with Netia. Other buyers will probably include Raiffeisen, PZU group, BGŻ, Szeptel, Polsat, Polpager, ITI, PKP, Poczta Polską, Budimex, Ferrovial, Telewizja Familijna, Pro Futuro, Mostostal Export, Pekao SA, the Jupiter national investment fund and Optimus. Foreign buyers will probably include the Spanish Telefonica, Finnish Sonera, Hutchison, Dutch KPN and Norwegian Telenor.