Moody mid-winter

The indices dropped at the news of Sławomir Skrzypek’s nomination for the president of the National Bank of Poland. The nomination caused concern on the market, mainly among foreign investors, who were expecting the new central banker to be a better known economist. The bad sentiment dragged on for a few days, but the second week of the month saw a lightening of the mood on the Warsaw bourse. Thanks to encouraging developments on the international markets, the indices went up, and January 18th was one of the best days in the WSE’s history. Not only did nearly all of the bourse’s indexes reach all-time highs, but also the turnover hit a historic high (over PLN 3.5 bln). The end of January is the period when companies publish their results for the previous year, so investors on the WSE focus their attention on specific companies.

Meanwhile, the biggest event in January was the debut of Warimpex, an Austrian company which on the Warsaw and Vienna stock exchanges floated 6 mln new shares and 3 mln existing shares to finance their development strategy. And this is quite impressive. The company plans to have a chain of 100 hotels in central and eastern Europe within eight years at a total cost of EUR 300–500 mln. Besides, there is a new company at our table: Gant, which a few months ago decided to try its hand as a developer. And, according to some analysts, Gant’s debut could have been even more successful, after the marriage between Energopol and J.W. Construction was eventually cancelled. In spite of this, J.W. Construction still plans to enter the WSE in 2007.

      (mir)