Minor Slanski shareholders fail to win representation

Minor shareholders in Bank Slaski (BS) have failed in their bid to gain a seat on the bank's supervisory board. The defeat is widely attributed to the last-minute decision of pension fund PTE Commercial Union (CU) to abstain from the vote. This meant that the smaller shareholders failed by 0.3% to acquire the 20% support needed to put their own representative on the board. CU explained its decision by saying that it wanted to secure the prospected merger of BS with ING Barings which, it claimed, was unavoidable. The coalition of smaller investors, which includes local pension funds and Singapore-based Templeton fund, has been battling with ING ever since the Dutch firm bid in March to acquire outstanding Slaski shares. The smaller shareholders did, however, win one minor victory, by obliging the BS board of directors to choose an auditor who will look into the bank's falling profits and its relations with ING, and in particular check if any confidential bank data was ever revealed to ING. (Puls Biznesu, Rzeczpospolita, p.B5; Reuters) J.K.