Polish central bank has ramped up its quantitative-easing program, buying the most debt at a single auction since July in a bid to keep a lid on borrowing costs, Bloomberg News reported. The purchases worth 3.75 billion zloty ($968 million) included 1.5 billion zloty of notes issued by state-run lender BGK and seven series of government bonds maturing from 2024 to 2030, according to auction results published on the National Bank of Poland’s page on Bloomberg.
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Poland’s increasingly rickety right-wing governing coalition has split over the €672.5 billion COVID Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) — potentially endangering a project that has to be approved by all 27 EU countries before going into effect, Politico reported. The RFF is part of the EU’s €750 billion Next Generation EU package, aimed at pulling the bloc out of the economic downturn caused by the pandemic, as well as boosting key priorities like the green energy transformation. The ruling United Right coalition is dominated by Law and Justice (PiS) with two smaller parties.
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Poland’s government received an EU slapdown over its radical judicial reforms after the bloc’s highest court ruled Tuesday that changes to the way Polish Supreme Court judges are appointed may infringe EU law, Politico reported. The judgment comes amid growing concern about the independence of Poland’s judiciary, and forms part of a years-long legal and political conflict between Brussels and Warsaw over worries that the nationalist government is backsliding on the EU’s democratic standards.
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Polish manufacturer of steel foundations for offshore wind farms, ST3 Offshore – which declared bankruptcy in March 2020 – has been put up for sale by the Official Receiver of the company in insolvency, OffshoreWind.biz reported. A tender has been issued for the sale of ST3 Offshore with a reserve price of the company amounting to PLN 234,680,000 net (around EUR 52 million). To participate in the tender procedure, bids (unconditional and written in Polish) should be submitted in two copies until 14:00 on 10 March.
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Poland’s central bank moved to resolve the biggest threat to the country’s financial industry, offering commercial lenders help in converting $30 billion of Swiss-franc loans into zloty, Bloomberg News reported. The banks asked the monetary authority to step in after a multitude of lawsuits over the loans forced them into mounting provisions. But the stiff conditions attached to aid, which include halting dividends and shoring up capital, are already facing a pushback from the industry, meaning the deal may take time to hash out.
Poland’s MBank SA and ING Bank Slaski SA are recognizing potential losses from legal battles over Swiss-franc loans, moving the industry closer to resolving a dispute that has long clouded its prospects, Bloomberg News reported. The unit of Commerzbank AG set aside a record 439.5 million zloty ($118 million) to cover risks from its foreign-currency mortgages in the final three months of 2020, likely putting the lender in red for the quarter.
Polish carrier LOT is acquiring Thomas Cook’s German airline Condor, creating a leading aviation group in Europe carrying more than 20 million passengers a year, the companies said on Friday. Condor, which according to sources was sold for about 300 million euros ($333 million), operates a fleet of more than 50 aircraft while LOT has a fleet of 80 aircraft, Reuters reported. LOT chief executive Rafal Milczarski said he sees a possible order of around 30 planes from Boeing and Airbus.
Condor, the airline that used to belong to Thomas Cook, has attracted interest from buyout groups Apollo and Greybull as well as Polish carrier LOT, which are expected to submit final bids next week, a person close to the matter said, Reuters reported. Each of the bidders could tie up with some of Germany’s leading tour operators in a potential deal to buy Condor, the person said on Thursday. Condor and Apollo declined to comment, while Greybull and LOT were not immediately available for comment.
In a related story, Reuters reported that Thomas Cook’s Polish business Neckermann Polska said on Wednesday it was insolvent as the effects of the demise of the world’s oldest travel firm spread to central Europe, leaving around 3,600 Polish tourists stuck abroad. Thomas Cook, which started life in 1841 running local rail excursions and grew to pioneer package holidays, collapsed early on Monday stranding hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers.
It was too good a deal to pass up. Starting more than a decade ago, Poles got the chance to take out mortgages denominated in Swiss francs with interest rates less than half the prevailing level for loans in Polish zloty, Bloomberg News reported. More than a million people jumped at the opportunity. Then in 2015, the Swiss unpegged the franc from the euro and it surged in value, just as the zloty was weakening. Some loans doubled in zloty terms, leaving homeowners struggling to pay. Thousands sued, and a European court ruling expected this year could afford them relief.