Talks on re-polonising Pekao bank under way

Michał Krupiński, the head of Poland's biggest insurance company, state-run PZU, has been holding talks on buying back Poland's second-largest bank, Bank Pekao SA, from its current owner, Italy's UniCredit. But many details still need to be worked out. After Poland dumped communism in 1989, its new pro-capitalist leaders began selling off everything in sight to foreign investors and destroying what they couldn't sell under what was called the Balcerowicz plan. The present pro-Polish PiS government inherited a country most of whose industrial assets and retail facilties were foreign-owned including 58% of the nation's banking sector. The buy-back scheme is part of the current Morawiecki Plan which is working to finally make Poles the masters of their own country's economy.

yes many details need to be worked out - like where to get the money from. And a small detail - what if Pekao's customers don't want to deposit their cash with the economically illiterate PiS govenment.

With a giant hole in the budget...

biznes.onet.pl/wiadomosci/finanse/zadluzenie-skarbu-panstwa-w-2016-roku/elbhh2

summary: In just over six months of this year, the debt liabilities of the State Treasury have grown over 64.5 billion zloties. It's as if the debt increased by almost 15 million zloties every hour.

Tylko przez sześć miesięcy tego roku zadłużenie Skarbu Państwa wzrosło o ponad 64,4 mld złotych. To tak, jakby każdej godziny dług wzrastał o prawie 15 mln złotych.


That is a concern.... I have a PKO account and I don't know if I want PiS to get their socialist spend-and-crash mits too close to it.

Who is going to repay it? That red-hair lady minister who gives away money to everyone in need...? As for repaying the debt, she will certainly say: I have no money, sorry.

The only consolation is that in America the public debt increases even faster... God save America!

The problem is that almost each modern country has so much debt nowadays. Or even more. Maybe except for those having much natural resources.

It's sick, but what can we do with that? There is no way to be competitive with the others.


I am not much in the topic, but from what I know... What else could a country do, having practically no money, no funds at all (after the hyperinflation), to be able to provide all the basic services and pay the pensions? When you have no money at all and you need some immediately, what do you do then? You sell what you have.

From my point of view, what could be done much better, was to perform the whole privatization with more care and sense. Not in such a way, as it happened, with the buyers often closing the bought factories instead of developing and modernizing them. The government performing the privatization should be more sensible to the real intentions of the buyers.

re-polonising is always good.

Wrong! The PiS answer is you imagine you have all the money in the world and set up entrepreneurial training schemes and thorough decommunization (except for insiders of the party doing the decommunization). Then the powerhouse of the Polish undustrial behemoth would make the world tremble! Tremble! I tell you!


This is true but probably more due to naivete than sinister plans. Poland _greatly_ over-estimated the goodwill of those buying Polish industry (though to be fair a lot of it was essentially in ruins).

The key question is, do you obsess on the mistakes made then forever? Or do you concentrate on building a better future? PiS is mostly about obsessing on the past, PiS is more like Miss Havisham, time has stood still in 1989 and 1992 and 2010 and they want to turn the whole country into a memorial museum rather than focus on solving current problems.

Well PZU share price responded by sinking to a record low. No problem for me - after years as a loyal shareholder I have got tired of the falling profits and dividends and had already dumped it. PZU has a great market position on a strong growth economy and should be performing much better - which they would do if they stuck to insurance. the appointment of govt cronies is nothing new - started even in the mid 90s - difference is that the people that Cimosiewicz or Tusk appointed had a vague clue about business.

Some of the comments above about the family silver being sold cheap are very wide of the mark - I spent much of the 90s tramping round freezing, unsafe factories and decrepid offices - much of the industrial base was totally worthless. there are plenty of examples of countries where privatization was too quick, but in those where ot was too slow like Serbia and Ukraine the effect on economic progress and social cohesion is obvious.

Poland is a farming country, unsurprisingly its image as an engineering country is garbage.

But farmers don't get it do they?

Actually, they do from time to time. Ask late grand master Ulrich von Jungingen and most of the Teutonic ``knights`` moronic leadership and scum that were properly killed, as goes for such a kind, at Battle of Grunwald.

Similar is with foreign banks in Poland. They tried, they losing.

Unfortunately it is so indeed. PiS looks behind, not forward.


Poland has always been farming country. Although Polish farming is also not in the best condition. It's based mainly on very small family farms. Polish countryside usually looks so that there is a house with a barn - and a long belt of field behind. Next to it, along the street, a next house - and a next belt of field. And so on. I mean, it's seems to be more natural and ecological - and I very like it, I am not for changing it to big factory-like farms. But it is not really effective from the country point of view.

Really? Does he has money to buy it? Maybe few people from PiS are putting money into that enterprise? No? Let me guess, they'll gambling people's tax money.

I would fire that crook!
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peterweg, you're talking out of your backside, if you suggest that there is not engineering and enterprising tradition in Poland, nor that was lots of stuff produced by factories before 89.

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Nobody was buying those factories that produced steel and parts for Soviet tanks. What was left was in a fairly good shape.
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That is your opinion, banking sector of the economy in Poland belongs mostly in foreign hands and that is no good state of the affairs. They're right in that.

Is their solution the right cure for that malady - I think not!
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Is that even means anything? Repeating slogans gets you nowhere.
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The main strength of Poland has been agriculture for centuries. Nothing wrong with it.

Country without agriculture in the hands of smaller producers has no future. Bog agricultural systems are necessity but, not on the cost of destruction of village. Strong peasant (farmer), strong country.

Kind of reminds one of the drunk selling off his family's keepsakes and household effects for booze. The Soros, Sachs, Michnik, Balcerowicz gang achieved exactly what they wanted -- for 25 years the dominance and prosperity of the ex-commie cum ex-KOR clique and the entrepreneurs, bankers, academics, entertainers, media types, profesesional dynasties and other elites that agreed to a vassalised Poland serving foreign-interest groups as a cheap-manpower and ideal assembly-plant venue. The present govt are trying to finally make Poles the masters of their own destiny and more justly distribute the fruits of transformation. There was money in 1989-90 but it was from Soros who was not interested in a fully independent and sovereign Poland so he bankrolled the above-mentioned who have enjoyed the perks and prestige of wealth and power ever since...until October 2015 that is.

Arise! Ye prisoners of starvaaaaation!
Arise! Ye wretched of the earth!
The Internationaaaaaale,
Unites the human race!

Why do so many things you write sound like PRL propaganda?

You are right here. When you read Polly's ranting on political and economic matters, you quickly discover his language is exactly the language of commie propaganda. I think he would make an excellent author for speeches by comrade Lenin, for example, or other Soviet or Polish comrades. Change the names in Polly's message and you would get a typical commie speech performed by comrade Wiesław (Władysław Gomułka) on the 1st of May having the Palace of Culture in the background. Polly's psychological profile is astonishigly similar to that of comrade Wiesław except that Polly is a Catholic (well, in his own mind at least) while comrade Wiesław was an atheist.

One does not rule out the other. No-one need choose between heartless, hard-nosed, cut-throat captialist and a obsessive nationalsitic patriotism. Neither extreme is good, so it's best to strike a reasonable balance. The Morawiecki Plan is not about building histortical memorials or museums as you well know. The Morawiecki Plan or some equivalent thereof is what the post-commie/ex-KORite clique deliberately failed to create in order to follow Soros' game-plan, vassalise their country and reap the personal benefits -- to hell with the rest of the nation!


PRL propaganda never emphasised full independence, sovereignty or Poland being the master of her own destiny without external interference in her domestic affairs. Poland's role was to be a "reliable link" in the "victorious" Socialist community, their Warsaw Pact and Comecon. That was the propaganda, the reality was Soviet vassaldom. In effect, that is much closer to post-commie Poland being a vassal of foreign interest groups. Many Poles say: yesterday its was Moscow, today Brussels. When will it finally be Warsaw?

A quick note: You =/= "many Poles"

Your stye is PRL not necessarily the labels. The PRL blamed all its problems on shadowy conspiracies and so do you (with a few changes in the identities of the conspirators). You write like a pro-catholic socially conservative Urban would. (that's not a compliment)

i truly can`t found words to describe how happy i am. My heart is so full of joy when see that modern Polish state moving in right direction.

So you condemn Catholic social conservatives and deny them the right to exist. That is your definition of pluralism, I presume.


Not labels but merits! PRL was a carbon copy of post-commie/KOR neo-PRL.
Only the slogans were egalitarian but the main benefits and perks were reserved for a small elite, the red bourgeoisie who served as Moscow's stooges. So that's not much different from the 25-year post-PRL clique which mainly enjoyed the fruits of transformation by serving as stooges for foreign intererst groups and the Brussels dictatorship.

In both cases. PRL and post-PRL RPIII, it was the backers of one or another form of Targowica that got rewarded.

@Polonious


Should do three things:
- return all the property to their rightful owners
- abolish ZUS tax
- let go all paper-pushers that are working for the government, in all government agencies and so on.

That is a good start of a real good change!!!
Building Lech's statue in the middle of Warsaw is not.

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@mafketis


No need to be snarky, Polly is right here.

Know of any government that pursues such a policy? Bureaucracy has been with us since the dawn of organised government. Nowadays it rewards political supporters (in the USA generous campaign contributors can count on cushy posts including ambassadorships!) and keeps unemployment rates down.

So they kiss 99% of 'good change' initiatives good bye!

Where did I say such a thing? You're the eliminationist, not me. Catholic social conservatives are fine, as long as they keep their religion to themselves.

I don't even have much of a problem with polonization of the banks as long as those in charge know what they're doing. But the way PiS is burning a hole in the budget I have no confidence in them not wrecking the banks.

morawiecki even has some good ideas, too bad he's hitched up his wagon to a bunch of incompetent losers, he won't be able to carry any of his good ideas out because PiS is too much into tax and spend and reward cronies over merit (see Pride of Poland disaster).

Your'e obviously taking your cues from the oppostion losers. Remember how they badmouthed 500+? There wouldn't be enough money, it would break the budget, parents would use the money for booze and ciggies, it discrimianted against the first child (PO claimed they wanted all kids to benefit!?). It turns out that 500+ has raised Poland's living standards, increased consumption and spurred the economy. By plugging the holes in widespread tax evasion, the necessary financing was found. Many kids went on a family summer holiday for the first time in their lives. To avert possible abuses the govt printed special coupons for distribution to suspect households to use only for the purchase of food and clothuing not addictives. It turns out that was hardly necessary. Morawiecki, the treasury and finance ministries are making sure expenditures get offset by the necessary revenues. Unlike the oppositon, who even hoped NATO would call of their Warsaw summit to embarrass the govt, let's wish PiS well and hope they succeed!


Ever heard of US Democrats rewarding Republicans rather than their party cronies. Or British Tories rewarding Labour operatives? Why expect PiS to act unlike all other poltical parties everyhwere?


The World Bank disagrees, Who are we to believe: you or them?
In a document titled "The Distributional Impact of Taxes and Transfers in Poland", the WB has analysed Poland's fiscal and social policy and found that since the launch of 500+, Poland's extreme poverty index has dropped 3% from, 8.9% to 5.9% proc. The World Bank estimates the programme will cost 1.5% GDP but the increased consumption will increase VAT revenues.

Are you referring to the foreigners who came to Poland and purchased formerly state-owned property at knockdown prices? When will PIS re-Polonise that property? And will you support it?

Was there anything illegal about this practice Harry ?
Or are you just jealous that you didn't arrive in Poland at an early enough period with a pocket full of Zee's to cash in on such a deal ?

The Chinese do this in America on a daily bases and it is totally legal.

" purchased formerly state-owned property at knockdown prices? "

Everyone was doing it at the time, the Polish guy up the hill from me bought a Palace and 1000 hectares of arable and forest land for 70,000 zl

Don't pay any attention to Harry. He's constatnly raising this concocted allegation to draw attention away from his suspicious dealings with operatives in Belarus on behalf of the underground CPGB. Ask Dreamergirl, she should know.

Harry considers Polish Pol a foreigner even though Harry is a transplant himself.
If Pol did nothing illegal then why is Harry camped on this subject for years on end ?
The only reason I can think of is that Harry just recently immigrated to Poland and these deals are long gone.
Harry would have snapped up such a deal if he had the chance.


If Poland can buy these properties back legally then what is the problem ?
What Pole wouldn't support such a buy back.