BIG Bank Gdanski places PZU shares at Eureko's disposal

BIG Bank Gdanski has signed a deal with the pan-European financial group Eureko giving the latter an option to buy BIG's 5%, or 431,761 shares, in insurer Powszechny Zaklad Ubezpieczen (PZU). BIG has decided to sell off its stake in PZU, as it felt it was benefiting little from its investment in Poland's largest insurance company. According to BIG spokesperson, Wojciech Kaczorowski, the decision to sell the shares stems from, among other things, BIG's failure to yield a favorable return on its investment when PZU's envisaged bank insurance services failed to take off. Experts say that had BIG invested the money in question into safer instruments such as bonds, the return could have been higher than the zl.50 million that the bank will earn if the transaction with Eureko goes ahead. It is estimated that BIG lost opportunities to earn about zl.180-190 million when PZU was rocked by the State Treasury's controversial move to annul some of the terms of the insurer's privatization and thus limit BIG's and Eureko's powers to exercise their shareholders rights. In related news, Eureko is working on incorporating PZU and Ireland's Friends First into its pan-European alliance under the patronage of Achmea group of the Netherlands and BCP of Portugal. (Rzeczpospolita, Dec. 2-3, p.B5, Puls Biznesu, p.4)