iShares MSCI Poland ETF Holdings (November 2024)
Poland stock picks that are the holdings of the iShares MSCI Poland ETF (NYSEARCA: EPOL) + the Polish economy & two competitors (Jeronimo Martins SGPS & Zabka Group SA) of hyped retailer Dino Polska.
This post takes a closer look at all the stock pick holdings (as of November 15) for the Poland ETF and updates our post from last year - iShares MSCI Poland ETF Holdings Ahead of Polish Elections (October 2023):
iShares MSCI Poland ETF (NYSEARCA: EPOL)
Price/Book (Most Recent Quarter):
P/E: 6.19 / Yield: 4.87% (Yahoo! Finance)
As stated last year, Poland is an interesting European country as its an economic powerhouse that maintains it’s own currency (the Polish Zloty is the most traded currency in Central and Eastern Europe); and at the time, it was not completely under the thumb of Brussels as it had a right leaning government (often at odds with the EU) and had mostly seen long-term economic growth.
However, last year’s elections put the pro-EU parties in charge - meaning (for better or for worse) Poland is back in the good graces of Brussels who have resumed funding their priorities in the country...
With that said, here are some recent headlines about Poland that might interest foreign investors:
🔬 Polish GDP growth slows due to weak domestic trade and external demand (ING) November 2024
Economic growth slowed to 2.7%YoY in the third quarter, as domestic retail trade deteriorated and demand from abroad was weak. We think the slowdown is temporary and expect some improvement in 2025. Poland still has domestic growth engines that should allow it to withstand stagnation in the euro area and risks posed by Trump’s protectionist policies
📰 Hirsch on the economy: Eastern European economies face mixed fortunes (TVP World) October 2024
Poland's economy has recently been performing below analysts’ expectations. Data published over the past few days reveal that industrial production in October was down by 0.3% compared to the same month last year, while the construction sector suffered an even larger decline of 9%. Companies are also cutting back on jobs, with total employment dropping by over 7,000 in October alone and falling by 53,000 since the beginning of the year.
🔬 Poland’s economy falters but continues to outperform EU peers (ING) October 2024
September data points to a soft patch in Poland’s economic recovery in the third quarter. Industry suffered from weak external demand, construction suffered from the slow absorption of EU funds and high rates, while consumption eased on weaker real wages. We estimate third-quarter GDP growth to be 2.8%YoY and 3% overall in 2024
📰 Economy in focus: Poland (Emerging Europe) September 2024
Poland’s fiscal expansion continues, as PM Donald Tusk shows little sign of scaling back his predecessor’s policies of high defence spending, generous wage increases, and lavish social welfare payments.
Here is a look at some key Poland economic data since last year’s elections:
Here is a look at the more recent performance of the Poland ETF covering the COVID period (the charts are linked back to Yahoo! Finance):
And the long term performance chart:
As for the Poland ETF itself, investors need to keep in mind that some of the stock holdings have exposure well beyond Poland and Eastern Europe - including exposure to Ukraine and Russia (through subsidiaries, exports to, etc.).
In addition, do note the Poland ETF is even more heavily exposed to the financial sector than last year with one state-owned bank accounting for a 15% weight (as it has roughly doubled in value over the past year when it hit a bottom…):
In general and while none have direct listings on the NYSE or NASDAQ (see our Poland ADRs page has more potential Polish stock picks with ADRs on the OTC plus links to some Polish media sites, etc.), most of the ETF’s holdings have listings on other European stock exchanges - making it much easier to invest in them (Interactive Brokers also offers access to the Warsaw Stock Exchange).
Last year’s post had also covered Poland ETF holding Dino Polska (WSE: DNP / FRA: 5Y2 / OTCMKTS: DNOPY) 🇼 🏷️ - a nationwide Polish network of medium-sized supermarkets, located in locations most convenient to customers (e.g. small towns, etc.). The stock has come up in our fund discussion posts and has increasingly been covered or discussed (or hyped…) by Substackers and podcasters (e.g. see our August 1, 2023 post for some links to some podcasts) - a red flag just as growth seemed to be stalling while the “smart money” was starting to take profits.
Shares have been bouncing around since early last year:
Price/Book (Most Recent Quarter): 5.79
Trailing P/E: 26.93 (no forward P/E) / Forward Annual Dividend Yield: N/A (Yahoo! Finance)
Investors looking for the next Dino Polska that may not be as heavily owned by foreign funds or getting hyped talked about by Substackers and podcasters might want to consider two of it’s retail competitors:
Jeronimo Martins SGPS SA
🇵🇹 🇵🇱 🇨🇴 Jeronimo Martins SGPS SA (ELI: JMT / FRA: JEM / OTCMKTS: JRONY / JRONF) - Food distribution & specialised retail (supermarkets, convenience stores, pharmacies, coffeeshops, etc.). 🇼 🏷️
🎥 2023 Highlights | Jerónimo Martins (Jerónimo Martins) 4:04 Minutes (April 2024)
🎥 230 YEARS OF HISTORY | JERÓNIMO MARTINS (Jerónimo Martins) 7:45 Minutes (February 2023)
[Playback outside of YouTube is disabled]
In 1792, a young Jerónimo Martins left his native Galicia to open a small grocery store in the heart of Lisbon. 230 years later, his name lives on as part of an international Group operating in three countries, on two continents and with over 4,900 stores. His curious spirit and desire to grow are part of our DNA, which today more than 120,000 employees share.
💻 Jeronimo Martins: The Recent Drop Justifies Investment Into Undervaluation (Seeking Alpha) $ August 2024 🗃️
💻 #39 Jerónimo Martins (Kroker Equity Research) July 2024
Unknown retail giant
💻 Jeronimo Martins: Steeped In History And Reliant On Emerging Markets (Seeking Alpha) $ April 2024 🗃️
Price/Book (Most Recent Quarter): 4.20
Forward P/E: 23.47 / Forward Annual Dividend Yield: 3.69% (Yahoo! Finance)
Zabka Group SA
🇵🇱 🇷🇴 Zabka Group SA (WSE: ZAB / FRA: 9M1) - Largest chain of convenience stores (often in apartment buildings) in CEE. 🇼 🏷️
🔬 Zabka Group (ZAB PW, Market cap PLN 20.9bn/EUR 4.8bn) (East West Research) November 2024
Zabka Group was founded in 1998 and is the largest chain of convenience stores in CEE (small local stores, often 24/7, where you can buy food, newspapers, send a package or withdraw cash) with currently 10,880 stores in Poland and 26 in Romania. The store locations, which are often in apartment buildings, are being selected by Zabka with an AI-based tool, which analyses millions of addresses and takes into account hundreds of KPIs.
📰 Poland's Zabka climbs as much as 9% in Warsaw IPO (Reuters) October 2024
The company priced its initial public offering at 21.50 zlotys per share, valuing the offer at 6.45 billion zlotys ($1.62 billion). By 0902 GMT its shares were up 3.3% at 22.10 zlotys, having earlier risen as high as 23.44 zlotys.
🎥 Żabka Group- The Ultimate Convenience Ecosystem Making Life Easier (TBD Media Group) 6:06 Minutes (May 2023)
Since the pandemic, society has become acutely aware of the importance of convenience stores in local communities, because where large scale supermarkets couldn’t deliver, convenience stores could and were just around the corner. One such example is the Żabka, one of the most recognisable brands in Poland, with nearly 3 million customers using its services daily. With over 9400 stores in Poland, Żabka is able to accompany its customers throughout the day across physical and digital channels thanks to a business model based on creating and developing various solutions within the modern convenience ecosystem that helps to save time and effort when shopping, having a hot meal on the go, send a parcel, withdraw cash or take advantage of dietary catering.
This video is slightly dated, but provides comprehensive overview of the Polish retail market and the company:
🎥 #42 Żabka Poland – the ultimate convenience ecosystem (Global Convenience Store Focus) 50 Minutes (August 2022)
Żabka Polska’s, EVP and Managing Director Dr Adam Manikowski joins hosts Carolyn Schnare and Dan Munford in this episode of Shop Talk LIVE, along with Leszek Jurczak, NACS Relationship Partner CEE and NACS Global Director, Mark Wohltmann.
20% of the team at Żabka work in IT and digital innovation.
Żabka opened 1,100 stores last year.
15m Poles live within 500 meters of a Żabka store.
Zabka has opened more Nano autonomous stores (50) than anyone else in Europe.
These are amongst some of the amazing statistics Dr Adam Manikowski shares as he discusses with Dan and Carolyn the 3 stage transformational journey Żabka have been on to become the ultimate convenience ecosystem in Poland.
“We don’t just say, we do” he says, providing insight into their digital transformation, format evolution and transformation in responsible retailing.
NACS Relationship Partner CEE, Leszek Jurczak begins the episode by providing a detailed brief of the Polish convenience retail landscape in Poland and outlines who the key players are illustrating the big changes happening in the market, including the MOL Group and Orlen acquisitions.
Mark Wohltmann, Director NACS Global, reflects with Leszek on some of the big challenges facing the industry both in Poland and globally and we congratulate Mark on the success of the NACS Relationship Partner model which provides the global industry with NACS representatives in an increasingly impressive number of key global markets.
Price/Book (Most Recent Quarter): 22.40
Trailing P/E: 37.41 (no forward P/E) / Forward Annual Dividend Yield: N/A (Yahoo! Finance)
To make your life easier, the rest of this post has a much shorter stock description (from our Emerging & Eastern Europe Stock Index) to make the whole post easier to skim through (an autogenerated Substack table of contents with the names of each stock holding will appear as small lines on the left side of desktop browsers) and includes:
🌐🌏 etc. This is fairly subjective as, for example, many stocks are part of global supply chains rather than purely domestic companies.
🏛️ State owned, controlled, or influenced companies.
👼🏻 ESG friendly stock e.g. renewable energy. This is fairly subjective.
🅿️ Preference shares available (Note: I don’t see a comprehensive list of preference shares or preferred stocks readily available on the Internet…).
A very short description of the stock with links to the IR page and stock quote(s) on Yahoo! Finance or other sites.
Any Wikipedia page (denoted by 🇼) and a Substack stock tag link (denoted by 🏷️) linked to any post under EM Stock Pick Tear Sheets.
A price/book (most recent quarter) ratio plus forward or trailing P/E and dividend yields linked back to the Yahoo! Finance statistics page.
The latest long term technical chart linked back to Yahoo! Finance. Note: Charts for Warsaw Stock Exchange listings have trouble appearing on some browsers (or will not appear when Yahoo! Finance is set to classic mode).
And as always, this post is provided for informational purposes only (and to make your life easier by providing you with relevant information, links, and charts). It does not constitute investment advice and/or a recommendation…
Finally, note that our Emerging & Eastern Europe Stock Index has been cleaned up and updated:
Alior Bank
🇵🇱 Alior Bank (WSE: ALR / FRA: A6O) - Universal bank. A subsidiary of insurance company PZU (WSE: PZU / FRA: 7PZ / FRA: 7PZ0). 🇼 🏷️
Price/Book (Most Recent Quarter): 1.06
Forward P/E: 6.78 / Forward Annual Dividend Yield: 5.05% (Yahoo! Finance)
Allegro.eu
🇵🇱 Allegro.eu SA (WSE: ALE / FRA: AL0 / OTCMKTS: ALEGF) - Most popular shopping platform in Poland & the largest e-commerce platform of European origin. 🇼 🏷️
Price/Book (Most Recent Quarter): 3.09
Forward P/E: 20.33 / Forward Annual Dividend Yield: N/A (Yahoo! Finance)
AmRest Holdings
🌍 AmRest (WSE: EAT / FRA: 1QT / OTCMKTS: ARHOF) - Leading publicly listed European restaurant operators in 22 countries in Europe & Asia. Began in Wrocław with the first Pizza Hut. 🇼 🏷️
✅ AmRest (WSE: EAT / FRA: 1QT / OTCMKTS: ARHOF): A Leading European Restaurant Operator Still Below Pre-COVID Highs (June 2023)
Price/Book (Most Recent Quarter): 2.76
Trailing P/E: 34.38 (no forward P/E) / Forward Annual Dividend Yield: N/A (Yahoo! Finance)
