Taking stock of the region

Plans to privatize the WSE are coming closer to reality. Last week, Deputy Treasury Minister Paweł Szałamacha announced that part of the WSE could be sold in Q4 of this year.

"We want to finish the project in the first quarter of 2008 at the latest," said Szałamacha.

The Treasury, which currently owns more than 98 percent of WSE's capital, will sell 47 percent of its shares. However, these will be sold in packages of five to 10 percent of this 47 percent, and only domestic institutional investors will have the chance to get their hands on them.

However, the WSE has been looking to purchase shares in other, regional bourses - it has made no secret of its interest in the Sofia bourse. The Ljubljana bourse is another target, and this week Ludwik Sobolewski, the president of the WSE, made the surprising announcement that the Warsaw Stock Exchange looks to be a frontrunner in the bidding for the Ljubljana exchange.

"From the information that we have, [Nordic] OMX and our bourse are noted as the two most serious candidates [to take over the Ljubljana exchange]," Sobolewski told reporters last week.

Last fall, the WSE started its IPO Partner program in an attempt to begin or deepen cooperation with stock exchanges and brokerage houses around the region and to encourage foreign companies to list on the WSE. Currently, the exchange has agreements with seven brokerage houses in Ukraine, Estonia and the Czech Republic. The WSE is also holding talks with the stock exchange in Kiev.

"Our aim is to build a strong international market in Warsaw. We are interested in the whole market in Central and Eastern Europe," says the WSE's Dariusz Marszałek.