Amica without investor after negotiations break down

Amica Wronki announced on Friday it had broken off talks with foreign firms interested in becoming the white goods maker's strategic investor after the company failed to reach an agreement over future strategy. Amica has never disclosed the names of the bidders, but, according to Gazeta Wyborcza, unofficially Sweden's Electrolux and US-based General Electric were among them. Negotiations, which began last spring, broke down when an agreement could not be reached over maintaining the identity and local brandname of the firm, which is majority-owned by Jacek Rutkowski. "The investors were keen on introducing a certain amount of their products into the Polish market, but we couldn't accept that," explained Amica's CEO Wojciech Kaszynski. Instead of Amica products, the would-be investors suggested selling their goods under a different brandname. Conversely, Kaszynski continued, Amica's main objective was "to promote our own brandname in domestic and foreign markets". Not long after the Warsaw bourse caught wind of the news, Amica's title plunged nearly 4%. After the first three quarters of the year, Amica reported a net profit of zl.40.7 million, or roughly 36% higher than in the same period of 1999, on sales of almost zl.596 million. (Gazeta Wyborcza, Dec. 9-10, p.31; Reuters)