Treasury wins the battle to restructure bank BGŻ shares

Following several weeks of negotiations and a number of conflicts, representatives of banks, cooperative banks and the State Treasury have signed an agreement concerning a capital injection into Bank Gospodarki Żywnościowej (BGŻ). "This is a basis on which to conduct a share issue of BGŻ," said Barbara Misterska-Dragan, the Deputy Treasury Minister. She emphasized, however, that the whole agreement is still confidential and she cannot reveal how this process will be executed and what were the guarantees made by the State Treasury in order to convince cooperative banks to go through with the operation. The signing of the agreement was forced by the management of BGŻ, which after four unsuccessful attempts to call a general shareholders meeting in order to decide on the capital injection, announced that such a meeting will no longer need to take place. According to earlier information the banks and the State Treasury were negotiating a capital injection of zł. 500 million. (Puls Biznesu, p. 7) A.K.