PKO BP's early Christmas present

The Polish Treasury Ministry granted individual investors in the bank 3.5 million premium shares, which have a total value of around zł.2 billion. Almost 104,000 people will receive the bank's special shares, with one for every 20 normal shares they kept from the beginning of the year.

Almost half of PKO BP's shareholders (44 percent) are expected to hold on to the shares. The bank's officials say they do not expect any major sell-off even in the run up to Christmas, but some analysts say the situation is not that simple.

"To me it is obvious these shares come onto the market as soon as their price goes down," says Piotr Kuczyński, head analyst with the Warsaw Investment Group. "From the beginning of September we had a trend of PKO BP shares sliding downwards. On the other hand Christmas is coming and also the situation on the bourse is not bad."