BPH PBK optimistic over 2003 its projections

BPH PBK President Józef Wancer on Friday told a press conference that despite the bank's failure to sell Górnośląski Bank Gospodarczy (GBG) it will manage to increase its profit this year. "The bank's gross and net profit is expected to be much higher as we are centralizing our sales, and our merger costs with PBH were smaller than expected. The sale of Polcard will be of help, but without this we still would have been able to increase our profit," said Wancer. "GBG is a very profitable institution therefore we are not going to take unreasonable decisions. There is also some probability that GBG will stay in our group," he added. At the end of March BPH PBK's talks with a potential investor on the sale of a 71.04% of GBG were terminated. Last year, the value of GBG's stake was estimated at zł. 400 million, while BPH PBK's consolidated 2002 net profit amounted to zł. 147.8 million and gross profit of zł. 229 million. (Parkiet, p. 2; www.onet.pl) A.Z