A impressive preview

Poland's largest insurance company, PZU, made a net profit of zł.3.3 billion in 2006 according to its own initial estimates. This represents a 21.8-percent increase on the result achieved at the end of 2005.

"We are benefiting from the economic boom that we have been having in Poland over the last few years. We are also making good use of the situation on the financial market," explained Mirosław Panek, a member of the company's management board.

However, as the company said in its statement, these results are initial estimates and official figures won't be known until the company's audit ends in two months' time. The audit started in February instead of in November, as  usual. PZU's spokesperson, Michał Witkowski, explained that the delay was due to the fact that the company had originally called in PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as the auditor, but reversed the decision after it turned out that the Dutch office of PwC is working for Eureko in its case against PZU. In February, Ernst&Young was chosen to carry out the audit.

These initial results could be subject to change as PZU's operations in Ukraine and Lithuania (which are currently not profitable) will have to be included in the official balance sheet.

While profits jumped by a fifth, PZU's revenue remained virtually flat, growing by 0.3 percent to zł.7.68 billion last year. Panek explained that this was caused by "a difficult situation" on the transport-insurance market in H1 last year.

Grupa PZU's other two companies also boasted good results last year. Life-insurance firm PZU Życie made a net profit of zł.1.97 billion (a 39-percent year-on-year growth) and a revenue of zł.7.59 billion (up by a quarter from the 2005 result). The group's pension fund PTE PZU saw its revenue rise by 20.7 percent, while profits increased by 25.7 percent.