Bank merger to be confirmed at shareholders' meeting

Shareholders in Bank Slaski (BSK), at a meeting on June 28, are expected to agree to a merger with Dutch bank ING. The new bank will be known as ING BSK. BSK president, Marian Czakanski, has said that the merger will probably be accomplished in September or October, by the end of the year for certain, with only some formalities left to be completed before the whole process is finalized. Czakanski insisted that the merger would have a very positive impact on BSK, as it would allow the bank to expand both the range of its services and its client base, to include customers from Europe and even farther afield. ING already controls 75% of BSK shares, which it acquired at a cost of zl.1.1 billion. Some analysts are saying that ING would probably like to take complete control of BSK and withdraw the company from the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE), although there has been no official confirmation of this. (Puls Biznesu, p. 6-7) A.D.