Market anxiously awaits details of BPH branch sale

Cezary Stypulkowski, the president of PZU, has confirmed the company's interest in the purchase. However Eureko, PZU's shareholder with a 32% stake, is against the idea. Lorrie Morgan, the spokesperson for the latter, says that the transaction is beyond Eureko's strategy. Belgian KBC group, owner of Kredyt Bank and insurer Warta, has also expressed interest in buying the branches, and yesterday the CEO of Austria's Raiffeisen Bank said his company was interested in picking them up. "The new trend now in banking is that everyone wants to expand their network of branches, so BPH could be an interesting target for many," says Marek Juras, analyst with BZ WBK. "The problem is we don't know the details of the deal. It's really hard to speculate who is going to buy the rest because we don't know the value of assets to be sold." (WBJ)