The acquirers of Mostecká uhelná are having even their Czech assets confiscated
30. listopadu 2012, 15:14
The position of the six men having acquired Mostecká uhelná společnost (Most Coal Company – MUS) in privatization, and of their associates whose Swiss accounts have been frozen and who are almost sure to lose the CHF 661m (about CZK 14bn) deposited there, is gloomier that it has hitherto looked. This is because even their Czech assets are beginning to get impounded or frozen. And that is the reason why one of them – Luboš Měkota – suddenly turned off the money tap for its media investment – the Metropol and Pětka TV stations.
A few days ago, Měkota who had poured an estimated CZK 170m into both TVs to date, announced the cut-off to Metropol and Pětka TVs’ CEO Marek Vítek. He is currently abroad, and both TVs’ managements are feverishly looking for a new investor: they have just enough left for a few days of broadcasting.
After years of affluence, Měkota and his former colleagues Jiří Diviš, Marek Čmejla, Oldřich Klimecký, Antonín Koláček, and Petr Kraus, the key figures of MUS’ rough privatisation in 1998, are now facing trying times indeed. The billionaires have lost or are about to lose their management rights to their Czech bank accounts, and their other local assets have also been frozen, or are in the process of being so. The government might thus be able to recover, at least partly, the billions lost in Switzerland, which – as a result of certain Czech officials’ laxity – will be confiscated to the benefit of the Swiss Confederacy.
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Translated by Lingvus