2010-03-10 --- www.rp.pl/wegiel --- We are a private mine. We are not ruling out a new issue.
“Apparently the State Treasury decided that PLN 70.50 is a suitable price for Bogdanka,” says Mirosław Taras in an interview published in the Rzeczpospolita daily, the Parkiet stock market daily and a web portal www.rp.pl/wegiel.Rzeczpospolita: The amount of PLN 70.50 for Bogdanka’s share block is slightly too low. The State Treasury could have earned more, seeing that Bogdanka has declared good results for 2009, has signed a more than PLN 10 billion contract with Elektrownia Kozienice concerning coal supplies and the quotations of the Company are increasing.
Mirosław Taras: Every seller individually sets price for its securities in such a way that is profitable for it and apparently the State Treasury decided that this was a suitable price.
The majority of the Lublin mine is held by the funds now. Aren’t you afraid that a strategic investor will offer them a good price and thus will acquire Bogdanka? For example, NWR suggested recently that they were interested in privatisation of Polish mines.
Obviously, such a scenario is probable and possible. However, if Polish Open Pension Funds (OFE) which make long-term investments so behaved, they would act against the investment policy adopted by this kind of investors.
Is Bogdanka going to withdraw from the planned issue of new shares since the State Treasury has sold 46.5% of its shares?
We are not going to stop working on the new issue project but we also have to examine market absorption capacity as there is a huge share block of our shares available. For that reason, at the moment it is difficult to state whether and when that could happen.
At the beginning of the month you became the mine’s President for the next term. However, is the new owner likely to change Bogdanka’s Management and Supervisory Boards?
The owner has the right to introduce changes. It remains to be seen soon which role the funds would like to perform in direct corporate management and whether they focus only on participation and control during general meetings including the dividend, or whether they move further and make changes in the Supervisory Board and the Management Board. It is during the general shareholders meeting when motions concerning the change of the Supervisory Board or its extension can be raised. I believe that all Bogdanka shareholders will be concerned with the same issue – permanent and long lasting development of the Company and an increase in its value.
Karolina Baca
10-03-2010 www.rp.pl/wegiel
Mirosław Taras: Every seller individually sets price for its securities in such a way that is profitable for it and apparently the State Treasury decided that this was a suitable price.
The majority of the Lublin mine is held by the funds now. Aren’t you afraid that a strategic investor will offer them a good price and thus will acquire Bogdanka? For example, NWR suggested recently that they were interested in privatisation of Polish mines.
Obviously, such a scenario is probable and possible. However, if Polish Open Pension Funds (OFE) which make long-term investments so behaved, they would act against the investment policy adopted by this kind of investors.
Is Bogdanka going to withdraw from the planned issue of new shares since the State Treasury has sold 46.5% of its shares?
We are not going to stop working on the new issue project but we also have to examine market absorption capacity as there is a huge share block of our shares available. For that reason, at the moment it is difficult to state whether and when that could happen.
At the beginning of the month you became the mine’s President for the next term. However, is the new owner likely to change Bogdanka’s Management and Supervisory Boards?
The owner has the right to introduce changes. It remains to be seen soon which role the funds would like to perform in direct corporate management and whether they focus only on participation and control during general meetings including the dividend, or whether they move further and make changes in the Supervisory Board and the Management Board. It is during the general shareholders meeting when motions concerning the change of the Supervisory Board or its extension can be raised. I believe that all Bogdanka shareholders will be concerned with the same issue – permanent and long lasting development of the Company and an increase in its value.
Karolina Baca
10-03-2010 www.rp.pl/wegiel