Gov't misses two birds with one stone

The saga surrounding two high-profile conflicts between Poland and several international investors took a surprising twist last week. Daily Rzeczpospolita reported that it had uncovered a government plan to resolve its wrangles with Dutch insurer Eureko and Italian bank Unicredito in a stock-swap scheme designed to end both disputes in one fell swoop.

Unicredito has met with stiff opposition from the government to its plans to merge two Polish banks that it controls, Pekao and BPH. According to the paper, the government planned to make Unicredito sell off its BPH Bank unit to Dutch firm Rabobank, which is a shareholder in Eureko. In return Eureko, which signed an agreement with the Polish government for a controlling stake in insurer PZU back in 2001 and still hasn't received its shares, would drop its demands for PZU as well as for compensation awarded to it by several international courts of arbitration.

Ernst Jansen, vice chairman of Eureko, said: "I never, ever had any formal discussion with anyone authorized to talk about [the plan]. Also, I think that those plans are just complicating the matter. The real issue is that the politicians don't want to give up control of PZU."

Jansen added that Eureko would not accept any plan that did not include, "bringing PZU to the market [and] making it an independent Polish company quoted on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

When asked if Eureko was willing to compromise on the additional PZU shares that it claims Poland is obligated to sell it, Jansen said: "I think it's fair to say that we have shown in the past that we are prepared to make very major concessions in order to get things done quickly."