PZU replaces president in latest move to void Eureko

Yesterday Poland's largest insurance company Polski Zaklad Ubezpieczen (PZU) replaced Jerzy Zdrzalka with Robert Muraszko as president. of the company's new supervisory board formed on Monday by the State Treasury, when Minister Andrzej Chronowski sought to annul major shareholder Eureko' s stake in the company. Ernst Jansen from Eureko asserted that "the individuals named to the supervisory board are the Minister's puppets. We are shocked that the Minister broke the privatization agreement." Chronowski reportedly replaced the president since he had "lost trust" in Zdrzalka. Eureko plans to file for a court order to receive its invested money back. "If the court dissolves the contract, then the Treasury will pay back the money, but it will receive shares back and sell them again," said Treasury deputy minister Aldona Kamela-Sowinska. PZU was scheduled to debut on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) next year, with the State Treasury planning to earn zl. 5 billion as a result. "[Now] It is unrealistic" said ousted president Zdrzalka, adding that a long court procedure will almost certainly delay the debut. According to ABN Amro investment advisor Raimondo Eggink, the PZU fiasco will affect foreign investors' decisions, since "they will first think three times in order to be secured better than Eureko was." (Gazeta Wyborcza, pp.1,20