Animex seeks investor or buyer to help turn around loss making enterprises

The shareholders of meat producer Animex have decided that the company will not close down despite the fact that its 2001 consolidated net loss amounted to zl. 28.3 million. "There is no threat of liquidating the company," Animex management member Zbigniew Szpak said. The company is planning to narrow its production focus and there are unconfirmed reports that they are planning to sell off their poultry enterprises. However, president of Ekodrob Ryszard Wasniewski said, "Smithfields Foods, the main shareholder of Animex, has announced that it is looking for an investor to support their poultry companies". Analysts are speculating that plans to sell the poultry companies may be connected with their negative results. Pork and beef enterprise can boast much better results, thanks to regaining consumer confidence after BSE scares in Western Europe last year. "The profitability of all our companies for the first half of 2002 was positive," Szpak said. (Prawo i Gospodarka, Sept. 28-29, p. 6) M.M.