"The company has many years of experience in operating a pipe mill in its own operation of the Pipe Mill in Ostrava-Vítkovice. And it has the input material to start operations," said the spokeswoman for Moravia Steel.
Billionaire Tomáš Chrenko's Moravia Steel Group mainly consists of companies focused on iron metallurgy, metalworking, engineering production and trade in related products. The group includes more than 20 companies, the key company being Třinecké železárny. The group also includes, for example, ŽDB Drátovna, MSV Metal Studénka, Shroubárna Kyjov or Kovárna VIVA.
The head of the KOVO Trade Union, Roman Ďurčo, said on Thursday that the restoration of at least secondary production would return to work roughly 2,000 employees, Liberty Ostrava has roughly 5,000 of them, the majority of whom have been at home since last December.
The government representatives stated that its goal is to find an investor for Liberty Ostrava who will maintain part of the production and keep a large part of the employees at the smelter. However, after Thursday's meeting with the unions, Finance Minister Zbyněk Stanjura (ODS) told journalists that no investor had submitted an offer to take over the main part of the smelter's operation. According to him, the government has so far registered only one offer for the operation of secondary production. While primary production includes the production of steel, in secondary production other products are made in the company from raw material.
The minister stated that the situation was significantly complicated by previous court moratoriums, during which the company's problems worsened, which subsequently weakened the interest of a potential investor. According to Stanjura, the state will want to limit the rights of the current owner of the steel mills in the insolvency proceedings, which since 2019 has been the Liberty Steel Group from the GFG Alliance concern of the British businessman Sanjeev Gupta.
Ďurčo said on Thursday that he has spoken with two potential investors, but their interest is growing colder.
