Poland's PKN Orlen Is Buying As Fast As It Can

How do you build Eastern Europe's biggest company? First, make sure you're in a richly profitable business. Second, deal till you drop, since the easiest way you can scale up fast in this fragmented market is through acquisitions. And third, make sure you're the most driven, ambitious executive in the region.

Polish energy group PKN Orlen and its CEO Zbigniew Wrobel fit this description in spades. The company's business -- refining and selling gasoline, fuel oil, and other petroleum products -- is a perfect proxy for a briskly growing Eastern Europe, most of which has just entered the European Union. PKN Orlen sells Poland's growing hordes of motorists gasoline, which it distributes through its 1,900 gas stations. The company also provides utilities with the liquefied gas they turn into energy for Poland's booming factories. Then there's the asphalt the country uses to build and repair its growing network of roads: PKN Orlen makes that, too. No wonder PKN Orlen's stock, a darling of Western investors, has done twice as well as the main Warsaw index over the past five years. First-quarter profits, at $102 million, rose 12%, well ahead of expectations.