AXA looking to take a large slice of share offering

French insurance giant AXA is pondering an acquisition of Polskie Towarzystwo Ubezpieczeń (PTU), a mid-sized insurer which is in urgent need of a capital boost after increasing premium collection by 52% yoy in the first half of 2004. Meanwhile, PTU's current shareholders are not willing to provide the required zł.20-25 million in extra capital. According to the Parkiet daily, if AXA was to acquire 31.25 million shares from the planned share offering, it would have to pay zł.65.63 million, giving it a 48.6% stake in PTU. In order to go over 50%, AXA could buy more shares from other shareholders. Currently Grupa Ciech is the largest shareholder in PTU with 45.41% of shares, followed by Matrix.pl with 24.52%. (Parkiet, p.1) T.J.