Page 5 - bne_newspaper_July_28_2017

The Regions This Week
July 28, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 5
Central Europe
Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI) expects a consolidated profit of around €365mn for
the second quarter of 2017, the Austrian lender announced on July 25. The data suggests RBI’s recovery from a troubled few years is ongoing.
President Andrzej Duda signed into law a bill giving the Polish government power to appoint lower court heads. The president ignored calls urging him to veto the legislation, despite having vetoed two other bills with which the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party sought to control the Su- preme Court and the process of appointing judges.
Hungarian trucking company Waberer’s closed the acquisition of Polish peers Link and Link Services. The acquisition was financed from €50mn raised in a recent IPO on the Budapest Stock Exchange.
A new centrist political movement was formed in Latvia. The Par! (For) movement includes MPs that recently left the co-ruling Unity party, and plans to turn into a political party in late August in time to take place in the general election this autumn.
Latvia’s government gave the go ahead for UAB BITE Lietuva to buy significant stakes in Latvian media companies TV 3 Latvia, LNT and Star FM. The three Latvian media companies together con- trol large swathes of the mass media market.
Latvian businesspeople are working harder, a Citadele survey showed. The latest study found businesspeople spend an average of eight hours and five minutes working per day, up from seven hours and 56 minutes in an earlier survey, and more than half of respondents said they work at the weekends.
The volume of loans and leases made to Estonian companies and households grew 6% y/y to total €17.5bn in June. The reading shows growth 0.3pp slower than in May.
Latvia's producer price index (PPI) grew 3.1% y/y in June. The reading shows factory gate prices growing for a fifth straight month.
Lithuanian industrial production growth slowed 0.5pp but maintained its steady track at 6.9%
y/y in June, on a calendar-adjusted basis. The expansion in June marks the tenth straight month of growth.
Regional media and entertainment company
Central European Media Enterprises announced decent second quarter results on July 25. The strength came despite revenue growth falling be- low market expectations at 3.8% to $182mn. Cur- rency rates both dragged on revenue and boosted profitability.
Czech economic confidence remained almost unchanged at high levels for yet another month in July. The economic sentiment indicator dropped by 0.6 points to sit at 97.7 in the first month of the second half, but confidence remains buoyant in the wider scheme of things.
Hungary’s unemployment rate dropped 0.9 percentage points on an annual basis to 4.3% in April-June. The number of jobs created in the private sector since 2010 tops 500,000 and with the latest data Hungary's jobless rate is the fourth lowest in the EU.
The Romanian subsidiary of Hungary’s OTP is buying Banca Romaneasca. Following the deal with Banca Romaneasca’s current owner, the National Bank of Greece, OTP Bank Romania will merge with Banca Romaneasca to form the eighth largest bank in Romania with a market share of around 4%.
Poland’s unemployment rate fell to a 26-year low in June, when the rate dropped 1.6pp y/y to 7.1%. The trend of falling unemployment remains an important pillar in Poland's economic recovery.