The nominal receivable of approximately twelve billion billion to the bank failed years ago as collateral for a loan to a consortium of Czech suppliers after the engineering company Vítkovice Power Engineering of billionaire Jan Světlík broke its teeth in Turkey on the project.
“The tender is ongoing and in accordance with the rules, the deadline for its closing was extended to April 1, 2021,” says Jan Černý, a spokesman for the Czech Export Bank. At the end of last year, it was expected that the tender would be closed during the first quarter. The sale of the receivable also includes related rights.
As stated in the minutes of the General Meeting of the Czech Export Bank from the end of the year, the bank advertised the sale of receivables in periodicals of several different countries and also addressed some of the potential investors directly. “Turkish interested parties are afraid of the obstruction of the Adularya manager during the management of the power plant,” the minutes state.
Originally a private and still unfinished power plant, it is now indirectly owned and managed by the Turkish state through the state-owned Naksan holding. It was nationalized after the coup attempt in Turkey in 2016. However, according to experts, the receivable, whose market value can be in the order of billions of crowns, according to the daily, represents a very uncertain investment not only due to political risk.
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“Basically, someone who knows the project in full detail can go into such an investment. Such things are doomed to be bought at a low price by someone who is now lurking behind beech in Turkey, so to speak, “says energy expert Michal Šnobr, adding that the sale of the receivable will almost certainly not be a major success.
“There is no good option, either the Czech Export Bank will sell it and for some it will be a very good deal, or the receivable from the bank will remain,” adds Michal Šnobr. The mere failure to complete the Turkish power plant was, in his view, a combination of a number of errors in terms of technology and timing itself.
For the last few years, the Czech Export Bank has tried in vain to enforce the claim, and the fate of the power plant has also become a topic of political negotiations between the Czech Republic and Turkey.
Last year, the bank had the problematic receivable valued and at the end of the year announced a tender for its sale. According to the aforementioned December minutes from the bank’s general meeting, investors were to submit bids by the end of January this year.
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The Adularya lignite power plant project started in 2008 just 50 kilometers from the Turkish capital Ankara. At the start, the Czech Export Bank supported the participation of the Czech consortium of Ferrit and the tandem of BTG Energy and Vítkovice Power Engineering, belonging to the group of entrepreneur Jan Světlík Vítkovice Holding, with a loan of CZK 11 billion, which was covered by the Export Guarantee and Insurance Company. However, the power plant was never completed and the problems associated with the construction fell on the participating companies. The Turkish owner of the Naksan project then tried unsuccessfully for several years to sell the unfinished power plant. A total of over 700 million euros, ie over 18 billion crowns, was invested in the project, the majority of which were covered by money from a loan from the Czech Export Bank. The project, which includes the unfinished Yunus Emre lignite power plant and the neighboring lignite mine, was one of the reasons that bankrupt Vítkovice Power Engineering, which was the main contractor for the construction. The coal allegedly did not correspond to the quality for which the power plant’s boilers were built. One of the options in 2019 was for the Czech Republic to take over all the assets of the Adularya project from the Turkish side. But that did not happen in the end. The Ministry of Industry and Trade already stated at that time that the result would be a significant loss for the state. The power plant consists of two units, each with a production capacity of 145 megawatts. Unit A was already in the test phase in 2016 and Unit B was before its technical completion last year. |
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