POLAND: The European Bank for Reconstruction & Development has sold the 5·1% stake in PKP Cargo which it acquired when 50% minus one share of the national freight operator was offered through an IPO in October 2013.
The sale was undertaken through an accelerated bookbuild offering launched after the Warszawa stock exchange closed on February 10. It was completed at a small discount to the previous day’s closing price of 89·0 złoty, and attracted ‘strong interest from a mix of institutional investors both in Poland and internationally’. Goldman Sachs International and Wood & Co acted as joint bookrunners.
EBRD had been the second-biggest shareholder in PKP Cargo, after state railway holding company PKP SA. ‘The Bank, as an active minority shareholder, has supported corporate governance improvements and the transformation of PKP Cargo into a more integrated, market-oriented and efficient freight carrier’, said Sue Barrett, EBRD Director, Transport. ‘We are very pleased with the results and performance that the management of PKP Cargo has achieved and see this as a sound basis for the company’s future development.’
‘PKP Cargo has demonstrated its capacity to attract high-quality local and international financial investors’, said Grzegorz Zielinski, EBRD Country Director for Poland. ‘The EBRD’s sale should benefit the local capital market by increasing the free float of PKP Cargo’s shares and is further testimony to Poland’s attractiveness to institutional investors.’
