As Warsaw Business Journal continues to sharpen its focus on bringing you web-based news on Poland, we have decided to expand our content with a regular blog from yours truly, your humble Editor-in-Chief.
While summer is rarely the peak time for news of any kind in Europe and in Poland, and even less so when it comes to business news, there's still plenty to talk about.
Probably most intriguing bit of news today is where the opposition Law and Justice party goes from here – it's decisive loss in the recent European Parliament elections has cause rifts, yet again, within the grouping. Still, party leader Jarosław Kaczyński's position seems safe. But the party's populist, anti-elite rhetoric doesn't seem to be taking hold with anyone beyond its base, about 25 percent of the public.
In business news, the State Treasury is part of two big stories today. In what seems a yearly exercise, the Treasury looks to squeeze state-owned or partially state-owned firms for as much in dividends in order to pad the state's income. At copper miner KGHM, the management has decided to earmark a full 80 percent of profits for a dividend – paying out zł.2.33 billion. Understandably employees are unhappy about this, and believe some of that money should go to them. Indeed, it wasn't that long ago that KGHM management was saying that much of these funds would be required for further investment.
At bank PKO BP, the State Treasury-dominated supervisory board is butting heads with the firm's president over a dividend payout. While the president wants to earmark all of the bank's 2008 profits for dividends, the State Treasury opposes the moves, though it is unclear why. The papers today are positing that this will end up as a battle between the Finance and Treasury Ministries, with PM Donald Tusk finally deciding who wins.
There will be more from me in the coming days – and don't forget to comment (you'll need to log in or register for an account) – but if you need more WBJ to tide you over, don't forget to become a fan of WBJ on Facebook (click here), and to follow us on Twitter (click here), and get real-time updates!
And one more final shameless plug: Have you ever wanted to receive a daily newspaper on Poland in English? WBJ's Poland AM news-digest service is even better – it gives you all the top business, economic, political and international stories from Poland's top newspapers translated and in condensed, bite-size form delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning (in HTML, PDF, or text format). Why not sign up for a two-week free trial? Just go to our home page, and enter your e-mail address under the "Newsletters" heading on the right side to get started.
Comments (0) READ MORE
