A healthy investment

The Prokom Investments group has acquired two million shares in Swissmed Centrum Zdrowia from Bruno Hangartner, chairman of the firm's supervisory board, reducing his stake to 50.56 percent. The group's investment constitutes a 5.88 percent stake in Swissmed, which runs private outpatient clinics and a hospital in Gdańsk.

According to Swissmed's president, Roman Walasiński, Prokom focuses its investments in quick-developing companies that function in the new technology sector.

Swissmed's shareholders have also accepted a proposal to issue 13.9 million new shares, the profits of which are designated for expansion. The firm is cooperating with developer Hochtief Polska in the construction of three new hospitals. Each of the companies will retain a 50-percent stake in the land on which the hospitals will be built.

The Prokom Investments group, founded and run by tycoon Ryszard Krauze, includes Poland's largest IT company, Prokom, and a number of other listed IT companies. The group has recently overseen the mergers of several of its member companies, including the Asseco-Softbank union and the forthcoming merger of Spin and ABG Ster-Projekt.

The capital group has invested in the oil and gas sector through Petrolinvest, which recently invested in a number of firms in Kazakhstan. It also operates in the biotech industry through Bioton, the only WSE-listed biotech firm, and in the construction sector, through Polnord.