The Supervisory Board of České dráhy approved the purchase of the remaining stake in the telecommunications company ČD-Telematika from the PPF investment group. It will be 29 percent of the company’s shares, the railways now own almost 71 percent in the company. The previously announced transaction has yet to be approved by the ČD Steering Committee.
“The Supervisory Board has approved the repurchase of ČD-Telematika shares, and the material will then be discussed by the Management Committee,” said the spokesman.
The Seznam Zprávy server previously stated that the repurchase will cost 850 million crowns. According to the server, about seven years ago, the railways received an offer for the same share for approximately 198 million crowns. At that time, however, the railways eventually rejected the acquisition.
Over 29 percent of ČD-Telematika is now owned by the PPF group, which bought them from the Unicapital group of the Olomouc billionaire Pavel Hubáček in 2018.
ČD-Telematika offers ICT services to state and private organizations, especially internet, data and telecommunication services. The company also operates in transport, where it cooperates with Czech Railways on equipping trains with safety technologies. The company employs over 500 people, last year it recorded a profit before tax of 66.9 million crowns, which is 6.6 million less year on year. Companies and revenues fell by about 20 million to 1.67 billion crowns.
Czech Railways plans to buy back despite the current traffic losses. Last year, due to the coronavirus pandemic, they made a loss of 4.1 billion crowns.