The company Belviport Trading Limited of billionaire Pavel Tykač wants to buy another 1.67 percent of shares in the energy company ČEZ. After the completion of the transaction, Belviport will have a share of approximately 2.7 percent in registered capital and related voting rights in ČEZ. The company Patria Finance, which is the coordinator of the transaction, made the announcement.
At the beginning of February, Belviport informed the Czech National Bank about its 1% stake in ČEZ. Belviport has now announced its intention to buy up to nine million CEZ shares. Due to Tuesday’s closing price of ČEZ shares on the Prague Stock Exchange, these are shares worth approximately CZK 7.5 billion. “According to the Belviport announcement, the transaction is a one-time decision of the company and ČEZ will remain its long-term financial investment,” said Patria.
The result of the transaction should be announced before the start of trading on the Prague Stock Exchange on February 25. “This will probably be a non-public offer for institutional investors. CEZ shares should be traded in positive numbers,” said Fio banka broker Pavel Hadroušek about today’s trading on the Prague stock market.
CEZ is the largest Czech energy company. Its majority shareholder is the state, which holds about 70 percent of CEZ shares through the Ministry of Finance. The Cypriot company Belviport Trading Limited is owned through the company Clamount Investments Limited by the Czech billionaire Tykač, to whom the energy group Sev.en Energy belongs. This group includes, for example, the Chvaletice and Počerady lignite power plants, the Kladno Heating Plant, the Zlín Heating Plant and two North Bohemian brown coal quarries.
In the past, companies from the Sev.en Group concluded billions in transactions with ČEZ. In 2013, the group bought the Chvaletice power plant from ČEZ for CZK 4.12 billion. Last year, Vršanská uhelná from the Sev.en Group took over the Počerady power plant from ČEZ. The agreed purchase price was CZK 2.5 billion, but due to the settlement of other liabilities, the total purchase price exceeded nine billion crowns, according to the Ekonomický deník server. Tykač’s Vršanská uhelná also supplied coal to ČEZ in previous years.
According to media reports, Tykač’s Belviport traded in the shares of several large Czech companies in the past. These were, for example, the pharmaceutical company Zentiva, the O2 operator or Moneta Money Bank.
Sourse: CTK
