Hungary: renationalisation speeds up
Hungary’s fast-expanding re-nationalisation programme, led by former anti-Communist activist Viktor Orban, on Thursday took a great leap forward.
MVM, the state electricity company and emerging energy combine, is to pay around €870m for full control of E.ON Földgáz Trade and E.ON Földgáz Storage, the Hungarian gas trading and storage companies currently owned by Germany’s E.ON. Continue reading »
CEE refiners: not much upside
Photo: Bloomberg
A word of advice to investors thinking of taking a flutter on central European refiners: don’t.
That comes from Tomas Pletser of Erste Bank, who took a look at the region’s refiners and found little to cheer in a sector buffeted by overcapacity, and by the slowdown in western Europe, all with the threat of growing competition from Russian refiners. Continue reading »
MOL hits back at bribe verdict
MOL, the Hungarian oil group, is sticking to its guns. In a statement on Wednesday the company categorically rejected the findings of a Croatian court in which Croatia’s former prime minister Ivo Sanader was found guilty of corruption – including taking bribes from MOL. Continue reading »
Croatia: Sanader corruption verdict raises questions over Hungary’s MOL
Croatia’s efforts to attack corruption in advance of its imminent accession into the EU have claimed the scalp of former prime minister Ivo Sanader, who on Tuesday was found guilty of taking bribes and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The judgement could help Zagreb persuade Brussels that it is serious about cleaning up public life. But it could create difficulties with two EU members, Austria and Hungary, as the companies which allegedly bribed Sanader were the Austrian-controlled Bank Hypo-Alpe-Adria and the Hungarian oil giant MOL. Continue reading »
Warsaw exchange: pushing for a bigger regional role
The Warsaw Stock Exchange has long been hungry to play a role beyond just Poland – the peripatetic chief executive Ludwik Sobolewski has illustrated that in his attempts pull in new listings from across the region. Now the exchange is making that formal by launching a new WIG-CEE index.
The index can include companies from a country with at least two listings on the WSE as long as they come from different sectors. The 25-company list includes firms from the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Hungary, Estonia, Bulgaria and Lithuania. Continue reading »
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