Gov't wants to use TPSA stock to help state firms: Kaczmarek

Poland has no plans to sell its remaining shares in dominant telephone operator Telekomunikacja Polska (TPSA) to the public and may use the lucrative assets to help restructure ailing state companies, Treasury Minister Wiesław Kaczmarek said last week. France Telecom, which with a Polish firm holds 47.5% of TPSA, had assured him it was still interested in exercising an option to buy further shares from the government to gain a majority stake this year, Kaczmarek added. "We are not planning to sell in a public offering a stake of 17% in TPSA, which is in the hands of the state treasury," Kaczmarek said. "We find these assets very liquid and we can use them in the government's interventions."

Earlier this year, the government agreed to give small stakes in the former telecoms operator to two state-owned banks to help their restructuring, which depressed TPSA shares on fears the cash-strapped lenders might soon want to sell them on the market. Shares in TPSA, which with a market value of $4.1 billion is Eastern Europe's largest issue, fell last week on renewed worries that state-owned Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego (BGK) may soon flood the market with the TPSA shares it received from the government, along with Moody's cut of a debt rating outlook for TPSA. Poland privatized TPSA in 1998 by floating a minority stake on the Warsaw and London Stock Exchanges before selling a strategic holding to a France Telecom-led consortium. The previous government, which lost power to the present administration late last year, had wanted to offer further shares in TPSA to public, but difficult market conditions derailed its plans. - Reuters