Bank HVB discusses floating Creditanstalt on WSE

Bayerische HypoVereinsbank (HVB) is holding talks with Polish investors in an attempt to float a part of its stake in Bank Austria Creditanstalt (BA/C A) on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE). If this goes through it would be the first foreign company to debut on the Warsaw bourse. According to Parkiet, on Thursday, HVB representatives met with WSE officials and the Securities and Stock Exchange Commission to discuss the matter. There are no legal obs tacles to BA/CA being listed in Warsaw. The group already has an extensive market presence in Poland and controls over 71% of WSE listed BPH-PBK, the third largest domestic bank in terms of net assets. HVB said earlier it wou ld try to raise between EUR 860 million and EUR 1.14 billion by selling a 2 5% stake on the WSE in BA/CA to avoid a rating downgrade after last year's loss of EUR 829 million.