Poland sideline from growing pace of mergers and acquisitions

The value of M&A transactions in the region of Central and Eastern Europe, as compared to the global trend, has gone up this year, says a report prepared by KPMG and Dealogic. "The long war in Iraq and the SARS virus blocked the way for the long awaited ecoeconomic revival. However, one can see an improvement on the market of M&As," said Krzysztof Rozen, a partner in KPMG. In 2003, 753 transactions were made, the total value of which topped $9.2 billion, or almost 3% more than a year earlier. "An interesting observation is the fact that there is a growing number of companies from the region initiating M&As, which reached $735 million in 2003," commented Rozen. The largest transactions were recorded by Hungarian MOL, which took over a 23% stake in Slovnaft for $352 million, and PKN Orlen, which took over 494 gas stations from BP Plc for $148 million. According to analysts, the main reasons for the decreasing tendency of mergers on the Polish market are privatization slowdown, decreasing pace of GDP growth and lack of firm action taken by the government with regard to sorting out public finances. (Rzeczpospolita, p. B5) M.M.