Czech Coal Group

Czech Coal Group (usually shortened to Czech Coal) was established in 2005 with assets that included the Mostecká uhelná společnost mining company and the electricity trading company, Czech Coal a.s. In 2008, Mostecká uhelná společnost was broken up into two separate mining companies. The Group now consists of the following entities:

Czech Coal allegedly controls the largest coal reserves in the Czech Republic. The company states that it has coal reserves within existing mining limits that will last until 2052, and should the reserves beyond the limits become accessible they would last until beyond 2100. Czech Coal’s consolidated sales in 2011 were more than CZK 13.15 billion.

The effective owner of Czech Coal with 50% of its shares is the controversial financier, Pavel Tykač. Tykač originally purchased a 40% share in the company in spring 2006 and then quickly increased that share to 49% for allegedly nearly CZK 10 billon. Tykač purchased the remaining 1% from his partners Petr Pudil and Vasil Bobela in 2009.

Tykač is a multibillionaire (in CZK) and the fifth richest man in the Czech Republic, who apart from his holding in Czech Coal also operates on the real estate and financial markets. He has been described as “a person with the reputation of an unscrupulous player and secretive pirate of Czech business comparable to Gordon Gekko …, professing greed as the highest virtue”.

His earlier activities on the financial market in the 1990s included the acquisition of CS Fund, the asset manager of three smaller investment funds, which Tykač divested himself of just a few weeks before it was ‘tunneled’ or defrauded in March 1997. The most valuable acquisition of his investment company, Motoinvest, established in 1991, however, was Agrobanka. It was this company that financed most of Tykač’s activities, which before long led it to the brink of ruin as the bank was unable to meet its liabilities, leading to the intervention the Czech National Bank to rescue its clients by pumping CZK 20 billion into it. Tykač was investigated by the police in 2006 over the tunneling of CS Fund, but the later prosecution was later suspended. In 2012, František Bušek alleged in court that he assisted Tykač in defrauding CS Fund of CZK 1.23 billion. Tykač said the allegation was the result of an earlier failed attempt by Bušek to blackmail him. Tykač kept a very low profile from the late 1990s only to re-emerge in 2006 with his purchase of shares in Czech Coal, since when he has aggressively defended the price demands of the company and lobbied for the cancellation of the brown coal mining limits in North Bohemia, beyond which lie huge coal reserves.

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Wikipedia