Something borrowed...

"No! I think I will remember who I married and when it was," I indignantly exclaimed. As you'll have gathered, the assistant was speaking to me. This was, of course, a scene from a few years ago. Our marriage anniversary is in June and I must admit that the date that was eventually engraved does come in handy sometimes. Another couple has also recently chosen June for tying the knot, but this time it will take place in the chapel of the National Stadium in Warsaw. After the ceremony, they will be toasted at a banquet for 24 family and friends in the arena's so-called White Box. Important as the ceremony is (at least for the two people at the centre of it), it is rather an atypical wedding and the revenue from it is unlikely to remedy the budget deficit of the stadium, which for this year is projected to amount to PLN 22 mln. However, the operator insists that next year will be better, followed by a 2015 that it even expects to be profitable. The other managers of stadiums used as venues for Euro 2012 are less optimistic: the Gdańsk arena, according to their announcements, will only stop generating losses at the end of 2015, while its counterpart in Wrocław will take until 2016 to break even. How do they hope to achieve this? Organising weddings is one idea. Others are proposed by their respective managers on the pages of this issue, in the article entitled 'Stadiums after the Euros'. And since we are, as it happens, talking about stadiums, sport and team games, it would be worth mentioning the current refinancing activities of a number of banks active in the region. Find out more about the significance of one of the largest transactions in this part of Europe in the last few years (the EUR 650 mln for refinancing a Polish portfolio of M1 centres) in this month's feature article.