Polish Business Survey
There is some work for agency
The privatisation agency has received a list of twenty one new companies that the treasury wants to sell off. A list with a further six companies is expected to be received within the next few days and that almost certainly will not be the last this year.
The State is aiming to sell at least 80 percent of sixteen of the twenty one companies. In four cases the state is looking to sell a minority holding. In this latter category there are three of the subsidiaries of the wood and paper trading group Paged.
Bank plans to build holding
The BISE bank is planning to create a group within the next 18 months made up of three or four banks. One of these banks will certainly be Cukrobank.
The bank claims that each member of the group would retain its own regional identity, although certain costs such as marketing could be shared. The group would also be able to offer the same products.
At the same time BISE requires additional capital. The current capital of the banks is PLN121.3m of which PLN8m still is being registered by a court. The bank is now negotiating with its shareholders in order to raise extra capital. It is of course possible that a future investment may be able to take a majority stake in the bank.
Healing portal has debuted
Pharmaceuticals distributor Orfe has announced that it intends to open an internet portal.
This is the third such pharmaceuticals company which is quoted on the Warsaw stock exchange to make a move in this direction. It is following in the footsteps of Prosper and Polska Grupa Farmaceutyczna.
On a worldwide scale medical portals have enjoyed a lot of success.
Orfe has teamed up with SAP Polska and PricewaterhoueCoo-pers in order to bring it about.
Car sales are going down
According to auto-analysts Samar, there were 388,974 cars sold in the first nine months of this year. This represents 90,000 less than in the same period of 1999.
The top ten in the sales league has not changed. Fiat still sits at the top with 108,600 sales up to the end of September. Fiat has almost a 28 percent share of the market and enjoys increasing market share despite dropping sales.
Daewoo is still in second position with 89,600 cars sold but it is now fighting a rearguard action for market share with its image damaged by speculation about the future of the company in Poland and rumours of buy outs and pull outs. It has seen a four percent drop in market share over last year.
Financial portal is on the way
TP internet has announced that it is to invest in a financial portal.
Rumour has it that the company will take 25 percent of the shares in Erada who is managing the project.
Erada will no doubt use the cash for development and above all marketing.
This will not be the first time that TP internet has invested in a financial portal. It already has a 33 percent stake in the Parkiet portal.