Czech billionaire Pavel Tecak said in an interview that he is looking for acquisitions in the United States and Australia to continue the series of power generation, coal and mining rights deals, with the aim of obtaining high returns in sectors that others have avoided.
Tykac’s Sev.en Global Investments announced this week that it will buy land including mining equity in Queensland, Australia, adding to its purchases in the country including Delta Electricity and Australian Salt Lake Potash.
The investor, whose net worth is estimated by Forbes at about $8 billion, told Reuters he would seek similar deals in the United States, Australia and Canada, where he said the state of the law and predictability of policies are good for business.
“The world of coal and fossil fuels is so unbankable that assets are much cheaper because they have to be funded by equity,” Ticak said in his Prague office.
He added, “We are past the critical threshold, and we have enough equity to be able to afford projects in the multi-billion dollar range.”
Fossil industries will be phased out, he said, but they offer high returns in time.
“There is no doubt that it will end one day, but at the present time there are opportunities in this sector and we do not believe that there is an urgent need for power plants,” he said.
Mr. Tykac grew rich by investing in the Czech Republic in the 1990s, and later in the energy sector domestically and abroad. His Sev.en group includes coal-fired power plants and lignite mines in the Czech Republic which he says could close in 2026 without government support. Sister company Sev.en GI also has interests in Australian coal-fired power plants such as Genuity Pty Ltd, and in the US it has acquired Blackhawk Mining in Kentucky and West Virginia. The company also owns 55,000 acres and more than 600,000 acres of mineral rights with 2.2 billion tons of proven coal reserves in Wyoming, Ohio, Illinois and West Virginia.
Mr Tykac said his group posted EBITDA of about €2.5 billion ($2.75 billion) last year and that it expects a slightly lower or similar result this year.
“The projects we’re managing have very strong cash flow … so we keep an eye on them and when we don’t do anything for a few months our reserves fill up relatively quickly,” he said.
($1 = 0.9084 euros)
