A huge merger in the Polish internet market?

Russian DST, who controls 75% of Nasza-Klasa.pl, Poland’s largest social networking site, is in talks concerning a merger with South African Napsers, who controls Gadu-Gadu, online communicator, Gazeta.pl reports.

According to the newspaper, Naspers is currently running a due diligence procedure on Forticom, a key shareholder in several networking sites, including Nasza-Klasa.pl.

Experts say that the merger of Nasza-Klasa and Gadu-Gadu would be a good fit for both companies boosting their income, Gazeta.pl quotes Russian newspaper ‘Kommiersant’.

DST and Naspers refused to comment on these plans.

Polish Market

ECONOMIC MONITOR

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• ● In December 2009 and January 2010, as in previous months in the second half of 2009, the Polish economy stood out against other countries in terms of GDP growth. Poland’s economic growth was higher than projected and higher than in other European countries.
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• In 2009 construction output increased by 3.7%.
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• Retail sales increase in most product groups.
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• On the Warsaw Stock Exchange, stock prices were very volatile in January 2010.
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• At the end of December 2009 the registered unemployment rate (claimant count rate) amounted to 11.9% versus 11.4% in November.
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• At the end of January the president signed the 2010 budget bill into law. The bill was adopted by the parliament on December 18.
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• In the fourth quarter of 2009 the Polish economy turned out to be more resistant to the global crisis than had been projected and than the economies of Polish neighbours, something which boosts optimism in forecasts for 2010 and the next years.
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COMING UP

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WEEKLY MARKET ANALYSIS

The last portion of macroeconomic data for January will be released on Friday when the National Bank of Poland (NBP) is expected to publish balance of payments figures. We estimate that the current account deficit reached EUR580 million while the consensus of the “Parkiet” daily is EUR614 million. We expect that growth in exports slowed slightly in January to 10.9% y/y. We also predict that imports had already made up for last year’s losses and rose by 7.7% y/y in January.

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