TPSA's Marketplanet to acquire two new investors; Prokom and SAP

Marketplanet, the Internet trade platform that is known officially as the Otwarty Rynek Elektoniczny company, is expected to gain two significant new shareholders within the next few weeks. Currently Marketplanet is owned exclusively by Telekomunikacja Polska SA (TPSA), but according to the Rzeczpospolita daily, at the beginning of July Poland's top software company Prokom and German software giant SAP will become shareholders in the company. This will give a boost to the company's capital, which currently amounts to zl.20 million. According to TPSA's director responsible for the Marketplanet project, Damian Biedulski, the cost of the software, equipment and services necessary to launch Marketplanet was around $10 million. On Wednesday, a competitor, B2B Xtrade, set up by Polish hardware maker Optimus, American software producer CommerceOne and BRE Bank, conducted its first transactions. (Rzeczpospolita, p. B3) M.T.