JP Morgan to enter Polish market

The firm is conducting talks with distributors that would sell its products in Poland and they applied for notification of its investment funds with the Polish Financial Supervisory Commission (KNF). "We are interested in entering the CEE market. Poland is one of our major objectives," said Joanna Stec-Gamracy, sales director for Poland of JP Morgan Asset Management in Vienna. Competitors are very positive about this information and they believe this will further improve the market. JP Morgan will not have an easy time, as foreign funds are selling poorly in Poland and the public had invested under zł.1.5 billion in these funds by the end of 2006, while domestic funds attracted zł.98.8 billion. "We are facing a mix of portfolios once the Warsaw bourse is no longer a gold mine," said Piotr Dembiński, representative of World Investment Opportunities Funds. (Dziennik, WSJ, pp. 1, 10) M.M.