TP Invest's role in selling TPSA subsidiaries continues to be sluggish

TP Invest, a company, which was created by TPSA to restructure and sell off its non-core business partnerships, will soon take over minority stakes in a further nine companies, in which its parent company has 100% stakes. At present TP Invest owns six subsidiaries, has stakes in four associated companies and minority stakes another 16 companies. These last ones are to be sold as quickly as possible. TP Invest has so far managed to sell one partnership and has signed initial contracts to sell two more. The main criteria used to sell a company to an investor are price and the ability to provide their future growth. TPSA should be able to complete restructuring its subsidiaries by 2004. However, this process with companies controlled by TP Invest take another three years. TP Invest was set up as a venture capital investor, but has not acquired any companies so far. "The priority is to restructure TPSA owned enterprises, once this has been completed venture capital activities can begin in earnest. We will use some of the income from selling subsidiaries as venture capital funds," said TPSA spokesman Witold Rataj. (Puls Biznesu, pp. 1, 9) M.M.