The Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) yesterday elected Ludwik Sobolewski the deputy chairman of the Polish CSD, the National Depository for Securities (NDS) – as its new chairman. He will succeed Wieslaw Rozlucki at the AGM in June.
Sobolewski became chairman of NDS in 1994. In his new role, he has promised to reduce the 98% stake in the WSE held by the Polish government, by increasing the involvement of local banks, though the State will continue to own a majority of the stock exchange. He is also promising “no alliances with a large foreign stock exchange,” quashing the ambitions of the Austrian-controlled Budapest Stock Exchange to join forces with the WSE.
Instead, Sobolewski can be expected to attempt to realise the ambition of the Polish government to create a regional financial centre for the whole of east and central Europe in Poland, as outlined in the Polish government strategic document, entitled Warsaw City 2010.
The Polish government has made clear that the privatization of any part of the WSE or the NDS will not take place this year.
“The election of Ludwik Sobolewski as a new WSE chairman signifies that the current direction of WSE policy will be generally maintained,” says a spokesman for ING Bank Slaski in Warsaw. “But more details will come to light when other members of the new WSE Management Board will be presented at the end of May.”