Prokom boosts Pol-Aqua capital

Prokom Investments has purchased 4,503,390 shares in Pol-Aqua SA, a construction and engineering company that has worked on projects such as the Złote Tarasy and Galeria Mokotów shopping centers in Warsaw. Following the increase in Pol-Aqua's share capital, Prokom will have 22.52 percent of the total votes at the general shareholders' meeting.

In April this year Pol-Aqua submitted an issue prospectus to the Polish Securities and Exchange Comission (KPWiG) and was planning an IPO in June or July this year to raise some zł.120 million from the floor.

"The goal of the share issue is first of all to increase our turnover capital in order to be able to carry out contracts we have already signed. We also want to purchase new equipment and increase the capital in our subsidiaries," Marek Stefański, Pol-Aqua CEO, told WBJ at that time.

In the meantime, the company has been negotiating with corporate investors, which resulted in Prokom boosting Pol-Aqua's capital by zł.90 million before Pol-Aqua enters the bourse. The two companies will cooperate on projects in the fuels and gas sectors.

"Our competencies and experiences from investments and overhaul works in the fuel and gas sectors made us the leaders in the branch," Stefański commented.

Pol-Aqua asked KPWiG to suspend the processing of its issue prospectus but the company still wants to debut on the WSE by Q1 2007 at the latest. In 2006, Pol-Aqua has already signed contracts worth over zł.200 million and is negotiating more long-term agreements.

Last week, Prokom sold 13,211,279 of its shares in insulin producer Bioton. After the transaction, Prokom's total votes at Bioton's general shareholders' meeting decreased from the former 47.4 percent to 40.4 percent.