Warsaw Bourse Set to Grow

WARSAW -- Poland's young bourse, the world's top gainer last year, will join the top losers' list in 1994, but sound economic growth, good fundamentals and a rising number of stocks promise to set Warsaw back on a growth track.


Analysts say this year's tumble from speculative peaks in early March, which wiped out scores of small players, was a painful but unavoidable stage in the market's development.


"We have to accept this (slide) as a stage of the market's development with all its consequences," said Leslaw Paga, the first chairman of the Polish Securities Commission, now heading the Polish subsidiary of Deloitte & Touche.


The Warsaw index, after extending last year's 700 percent gain by another 65 percent in the first three months of the year to 20,760.2 points, lost half its value in the following weeks.


Now, after a long bearish trend, the market trades within the 7,000 to 8,000 point range, at about 35 percent of its peak levels in daily turnover and five to 10 times lower than the record of 4 trillion zlotys ($164 million).


Analysts say the picture may look bleak now but with the worst turmoil behind, the market's longer-term prospects are better than ever.


"The trend is still negative ... but prospects are very good as the average P/E is below 10, down from 37 at its peak, the economy is expanding and companies see earnings growing much faster than inflation," said Maciej Bombol, licensed investment adviser at Bank Handlowy SA brokerage.


Analysts also said a flood of new issues -- privatization offerings and offers by listed companies, which coincided with and deepened the bearish drive -- made the market attractive in the longer-term.


The number of companies listed on the main and parallel markets doubled to 44 this year and capitalization rose to 70.8 trillion zlotys ($2.90 billion) from 58.8 trillion ($2.41 billion) despite depressed prices.


Also, all but a handful of listed firms have raised their capital through new issues.


"The fact that the stock market finally became a place where companies can raise capital was the main achievement of this year," said Maciej Radziwill, analyst at CS First Boston.


But he said the negative side of the market's expansion was that poor sentiment had forced underwriters to subscribe to large portions of new issues.


"Since mid-June only two major offerings were closed without the help of underwriters, so we have an overhang of about 10 issues held by underwriters and this will have a cooling effect on the market in the future," Radziwill said.


Some analysts said the negative effect of the latent supply should be offset by higher sales and earnings generated by investment made thanks to capital increases. An upturn in investment spending in the whole economy is expected in an economy expected to expand by about 5 percent this year and next.


But others said the stock market would attract enough much-needed foreign capital only in 1996 when the country's mass privatization program goes into full swing with a roster of more than 440 firms and 15 national investment funds.


They said foreign investors, especially hedge funds, had largely pulled out of the market ahead of the March peaks and the bourse now needed higher liquidity to attract large long- term investors such as mutual growth funds and pension funds.


They also said the market was too heavy on financial institutions -- with seven banks listed -- and too light on large industrials, while such sectors as utilities or energy were virtually absent.


"You cannot generate enough domestic and foreign interest for so many banks and there are no offerings of industrial or utility companies in sight that could be attractive for foreign investors," said First Boston's Radziwill.


But others said high-profile offerings were not so important as a steady supply of companies with good growth prospects which would give the market much needed breadth and gradually improve its liquidity.