The PKO sale could be one of the largest in the WSE's history Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Poland’s treasury ministry has announced that up to 15 percent of state-controlled PKO Bank Polski will be put up for sale during a secondary public offering due to be held on the Warsaw Stock Exchange at the end of the third quarter.

The lender filed its issue prospectus with the country’s financial regulator, the KNF, in the middle of July, the treasury said in a statement.

The treasury itself plans to sell up to 5 percent in PKO. This will be in addition to the sale of some or all of state-controlled Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego’s (BGK) 10.25 percent stake.

At first, up to 13 percent will be offererd. If the full 13 percent is made available for sale, the treasury will then decide whether to offer an additional 2 percent.

The day after it issued its prospectus, PKO’s share price rose as investors responded with relief to the news that the stake put up for sale was significantly smaller than the 20 percent expected. Treasury Ministry Aleksander Grad said earlier this year that Poland could sell up to 26 percent. It would, he said, keep hold of a 25 percent controlling stake.

The stake up for sale is worth at least zł.6.75 billion, based on the company’s share price the day after the issue prospectus was filed. The stake has, however, been valued as high as zł.7.5 billion, which would make it one of the biggest offers in the history of the WSE.
But not everyone is convinced that the stake will fetch such a high price. “Warsaw is not Wall Street. We want to be careful. Even though the bank is perceived well by foreign investors, the financial crisis in Europe keeps escalating,” Rzeczpospolita quoted a ministry source as saying.

The treasury currently holds a 40.99 percent stake in PKO, while state-owned BGK is the second-largest shareholder with 10.25 percent. The state plans to raise zł.15 billion from privatizations this year with around half expected to come from the PKO BP sale.

PKO BP passes stress-test

PKO BP recently passed a stress test conducted by the European Banking Authority (EBA). It was the only Polish lender surveyed.

The test, designed to evaluate lenders’ resistance to financial shocks, was carried out on several financial institutions, each of which was considered large enough to affect the wider economy if it ran into trouble.

Of the 91 financial institutions tested, eight European banks – Österreichische Volksbanken-AG from Austria, Greece’s EFG Eurobank Ergasias and ATEbank and five regional Spanish banks – failed to pass.