Polish Business Survey
Health insurance develops
A further sign that the health insurance market is slowly developing is the recent announcement by the Allianz and Daewoo insurance companies that they will introduce this product.
Pension clients expensive
This month’s purchase of the PBK pension fund by Hestia Insurance was expensive with the latter paying PLN332.8m for all the shares in the company. However the cost may be justified when compared to other pension funds. The cost of getting one client into the Orzeł pension fund is PLN1,195. However if one is to count clients that have already paid contributions then that figure escalates to PLN2,348. That price is now close to the offer that the Finnish Sampo offered for the client base of Norwich Union. Industry analysts nonetheless consider these sums to be too high.
Making life difficult in Brussels
Parliament has made the job of Polish negotiators at Brussels even harder. The Polish team had a lot of difficulty in persuading the EU to accept a five year transition period for co-operative banks to reach a minimum capital of EUR1m. The lower house has decided to reject an amendment from the Senate and has now extended this deadline to 2010.
Government hinders satellite investment
The American WorldSpace wants to build a digital radio satellite system in Poland to serve all of Europe. The reasons for choosing Poland was because of this country's geographical position and because it does not use its already earmarked satellite positions. The communications ministry is however dragging its heels saying that as this system is not in use anywhere else in Europe.
Enterprise Investors eyes up Rumania
According to Bucharest Business Week, the Polish Enterprise Fund, which has already placed USD14m in Rumania, is planning further investments in health and telecoms to the tune of almost USD40m.
Hard getting paid
Exbud subsidiary Leasing Centrum has been placed on the black list of unreliable debtors. Marine recruitment company Phoenocean is claiming that it cannot get its money from the company. Leasing Centrum denies the allegations.
Agros liquidates milk subsidiary
Agros Holding has decided to liquidate its subsidiary Agros Milko as it was unable to find a buyer for the milk producer. Industry analysts consider that as many as forty of Poland’s 300 milk co-operatives could go bankrupt in the next few months. In order to meet EU competition they say that there should be no more than sixty such firms by 2006.