The mining company Sokolovská uhelná is looking to acquire T-Watt, an electric power transmission, distribution & marketing company, which is owned heirs of the late businessman Martin Ulčák. The transaction has yet to be approved by the Antimonopoly Office, which reported it on its website.
Sources say the company’s takeover may lead to a reduction in the debt that Ulčák had owed the mining company. The liability was to reach more than a billion crowns at the time of the entrepreneur’s death. However, the acquisition’s primary motive is the group’s strategic goals, says Pavel Tomek, Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Sokolovská uhelná.
“We have wanted to enter the energy trading business for a long time, and the acquisition of T-Watt has enabled us to speed up the whole process,” Tomek said.
T-Watt is an electricity wholesaler ranked 239th in the US Financial Times by the fastest-growing European companies between 2015 and 2018.
However, the inclusion of a relatively unknown company in the prestigious ranking has a simple explanation. It was not difficult for the energy trader, founded in 2014, to grow its revenues from the low base to units of billions, to the average level of revenues of energy wholesalers.
According to the latest published annual report from 2019, T-Watt had sales of 3.2 billion and an operating profit (EBITDA) of 13.5 million crowns.
Sokolovská uhelná wants to double these indicators within five years. “T-Watt has been trading with Sokolovská uhelná for a long time.
Our goal is to strengthen this intra-group trade, which is to ensure, above all, the renewable resources that we are going to build in the coming years. Gradually, we want to add other business partners, “outlined Tomek. According to him, the development of T-watts will also be helped by the expansion of traded products. Gas and emission allowances are to be added to electricity.
Sokolovská uhelná, which mines and processes brown coal and at the same time operates power plants in Vřesová and Tisová, is at the beginning of extensive changes. The reason is the growing payments for emission allowances. Therefore, the energy group wants to start using gas instead of coal in power plants gradually and at the same time build renewable energy sources.
The company’s co-founder Jaroslav Rokos holds over 40 percent of Sokolovská uhelná, and the family of the second co-founder controls the rest.
