Zdeněk Bakala, former owner of OKD company, reacts on the mining company’s lawyers’ claims that OKD’s value in 2006 was negative.
The value of the OKD mining company in 2006 was supposedly minus CZK 1.6 billion, according to the lawyers of OKD Recievables management (SP OKD), a company that takes care of finishing the insolvency proceedings, in which OKD found itself in 2016. The mining division was then separated and functions on its own.
“Zdeněk Bakala knew, or must have known, that the OKD’s mining plants without any non-operational property already had a negative value of CZK -1.6 billion in 2005,” says SP OKD’s statement published in the insolvency register.
SP OKD supports its claims with an expert opinion, which the then owner of OKD Karbon Invest company got made in 2005.
However, Zdeněk Bakala does not agree with that. “All those SP OKD’s claims are untrue and unfounded. SP OKD falsely presents the OKD’s situation, abuses information stated in the expert opinions and takes them out of context,” said Šárka Samková, Zdeněk Bakala’s spokesperson.
Bakala’s company Cercl Mining published the full list of reservations towards SP OKD’s statement in the insolvency register.
Cercl Mining Company is sued by SP OKD for payment of dividends in the value of CZK 12 billion.
According to Cercl Mining’s representatives, the reason for OKD’s insolvency in 2016 was not financial transactions, but a decrease in coal prices and demand. “SP OKD glosses over the fact that the property and funds, which the expert opinion assessed separately and valued it at approx. CZK 15.8 billion, were also transferred into OKD’s property as one of the successor companies after the demerger of the mining activities,” spokesperson Samková explained one of the reservations towards SP OKD’s claims.
The dispute between both sides concerns the situation in 2006, when the OKD company was split into several units. Therefore, apart from the mining company, several companies were created into which the non-mining assets were transferred.
This way, the OKD flats, other real estate and lands or transport were transferred out of OKD’s property, since they were in no direct connection with mining.
Zdeněk Bakala’s representatives also support their claims with another expert opinion from 2006.
“EY company’s expert opinion valued OKD as a dissolving company at a value of approx. CZK 52.34 billion and the successor company, which took over the mining activities, at a value of CZK 40.888 billion. This value was also accepted by the auditor,” explains Samková.
According to Samková, the events connected with NWR company’s public offering in 2008, when OKD’s market price was valued by investors at CZK 110 billion, also indicates the inaccuracy of the expert opinion from 2005.
Via MF Dnes Moravskoslezský