Treasury must agree with Eureko or float 51% of PZU

Treasury Minister Andrzej Chronowski has one week to reach an agreement with the Eureko/BIG BG consortium which holds a 30% stake in Poland's largest insurer Powszechny Zaklad Ubezpieczen and says that he believes a compromise is possible. If the Treasury does not come to terms with the investor with whom it has been at odds for several weeks now, it will change PZU's privatization strategy to sell 51% of the insurer in a public offering. Eureko and the Treasury are charging one another with not keeping the terms of the PZU privatization agreement. The pan-European insurance group claims that the Ministry has failed to yield as much power as it had consented to in the agreement. The Treasury, meanwhile, accuses Eureko of not investing as much in PZU as it has pledged. If the two sides do not reconcile, in a week Chronowski will recommend the Cabinet Economic Committee (KERM) to float 51% of PZU on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. In related news, yesterday's shareholders meeting of PZU Zycie, representatives of PZU, which holds 99% of the life insurance subsidiary, replaced PZU Zycie's entire supervisory board with new members. The board is now headed by Tadeusz Trziszka, a professor at Wroclaw Academy of Agriculture, a specialist in poultry and egg technology. (Puls Biznesu, p.4) T.J.