Polish equity market closed lower on Wednesday. The broad market benchmark, the WIG Index, lost 0.27%. Except for banking sector (-2.02%) and oil and gas (-0.08%) every sector in the WIG Index rose, with materials (+3.71%) outperforming.

The large-cap stocks' measure, the WIG30 Index, fell by 0.25%. Within the WIG30 Index components, bank PEKAO (WSE: PEO) was hit the hardest, tumbling by 6.39% on the announcement that Italy's biggest bank by assets UniCredit raised €749 mln by placing a 10 percent stake in its Polish subsidiary at a 6 percent discount to the previous session's closing price. Sources familiar with the matter said that most of the stake was sold to foreign investors. After the sale of the stake, UniCredit still holds about 40 percent of PEKAO. Other major losers were FMCG-wholesaler EUROCASH (WSE: EUR), bank MBANK (WSE: MBK) and insurer PZU (WSE: PZU), declining by 3.19%, 2.65% and 2.25% respectively. On the other side of the ledger, thermal coal miner BOGDANKA (WSE: LWB), chemical producer GRUPA AZOTY (WSE: ATT) and copper producer KGHM (WSE: KGH) recorded the strongest daily results, climbing by 6.68%, 5.55% and 4.07% respectively.