WSE privatization hits new glitch
Posted December 3rd, 2009 in Business news by Ela Pawełek-LuberaFinance Minister Jacek Rostowski has said that Deutsche Boerse has rejected tough conditions put on the sale of the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
The Frankfurt based market – the world’s only major exchange left showing an interest in the WSE – said that it had based its offer, “on a fair market value and a clear assignment of competency,” spokesman in Frankfurt, Heiner Seidel.
Poland’s government wants to sell its major share in central Europe’s largest stock market as part of a new privatization drive to help stem the government’s ballooning budget deficit.
With the German stock exchange pulling out, the government has decided to issue an IPO. “The assumptions for the new process will be similar to the initial strategy of 2008 when an initial public offering was planned for the Warsaw Stock Exchange,” the Treasury Ministry said in a statement, Monday.
The Vienna-based Wiener Boerse said yesterday that it was still interested in buying a stake in the WSE after initial interest was shunned by Warsaw. CEO Michael Buhl said the Wiener Boerse – which already owns the stock exchanges in Prague, Budapest and Ljubljana – said acquisition of the WSE would be perfect for the long term strategy of both sides. “I’m sure you could find a way to structure this in which Warsaw would play the role they want to play,’ he said.
In the summer, the Polish government announced the treasury had put four companies on its short list of potential bidders – Deutsche Boerse, the London Stock Exchange, Nasdaq OMX Group Inc and NYSE Euronext.
The Warsaw Stock Exchange remerged on the global financial scene in 1991 after being closed down in 1939.
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