Bank PKO BP bourse debut a massive hit

The first transactions were made at an even higher rate than analysts expected, namely zł.23.2 per share, over 13% more than the initial price at which they were sold to the public. The closing price on Wednesday was even higher - zł.24.5. Over 58 million shares changed hands, worth in total almost zł.2.8 billion. The WSE noted a record turnover of over zł.1.1 billion for the first time since February 2000. Brokers said that during the first hour of trading PKO BP's shares were sold mostly by individual investors who took bank loans to buy them and thanks to a smaller than expected reduction of orders (90%, although it was earlier said it could be 97-98%) bought more shares than they had expected to buy. The buyers were mostly foreign institutions whose original orders had been greatly reduced by the government. During Thursday's WSE session, PKO BP's capitalization rose by zł.4 billion and currently the company's market price is zł.24.5 billion. The privatization of PKO BP has been highly profitable for the Treasury as the offer is expected to raise zł.7.6 billion, and on top of that the Treasury can enjoy receiving the 19% capital gains tax from both individual and corporate investors' income. (Parkiet, pp. 1, 2, 7, 9; Puls Biznesu, pp. 2, 3, 14) D.W.