Holidays at Tykač’s. Plans to Enter U.S. Oil and Gas Extraction
Seznam Zprávy, Jiří Zatloukal, 23 July 2025 Link to the original article
Sev.en Global Investments has grown into a global group spanning four continents in just four years. It is now planning to enter the American oil and gas market.
Summer holidays at investment firm Sev.en Global Investments are far from quiet compared to Europe, largely due to ongoing activities in the southern hemisphere. “I have to say that for us, the two summer months—when it’s customary in the Czech Republic for people to be on vacation and work slows down—don’t really apply,” says Alan Svoboda, CEO of Sev.en Global Investments, which oversees the foreign ventures of financier Pavel Tykač.
In Australia, where the group owns coal-fired power plants and mineral rights, business continues as usual since summer holidays there don’t begin until December. “I’d say that this is actually the most intense business period of the year. So here in our Prague office, we have to plan operations carefully to ensure we cover everything that’s active and can’t be delayed,” Svoboda adds.
In May, Sev.en Global Investments (SGI) acquired a 50% stake in the Callide C coal-fired power station in Queensland, which has faced financial difficulties due to accidents and a collapsed cooling tower. The company is also seeking compensation from state-owned CS Energy, which is responsible for the damage.
But the group’s activities in the Antipodes go far beyond that. It is preparing to build a large solar storage facility in partnership with Samsung, continues to operate its potash mine in Western Australia—which has been flooded twice since its acquisition in October 2022—and still runs coal-fired power plants in New South Wales.
Fracking
The group’s main focus now is the United States, where it sees strong potential in the mining sector. “We’re interested in oil and gas extraction, especially since most deposits are now combined. In the U.S., conventional oil drilling—just a simple well—is rare. Most of the extraction is done through fracking, and they’ve mastered it. Everything runs smoothly there,” says Svoboda.
Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is a process in which a pressurized fluid mixture is used to create fractures in weakly consolidated rock layers, making it easier to extract oil and gas.
There are tens of thousands of wells in the U.S., often owned by various investment funds that buy and sell them based on their investment cycles. “We’re primarily interested in wells that are slightly past their peak, as there’s less competition for them. Many publicly traded companies in the U.S. need to show growth, so they focus on wells that are just about to boom,” he explains.
Tykač’s group, on the other hand, targets wells with stable cash flow. “Big players go after mining companies worth over a billion dollars. Smaller family investors look at companies up to $100 million. We’ve found our niche in the $200 to $600 million range, where there’s more flexibility. We’re looking to make one or two investments in that space,” Svoboda adds.
Czech Capitalists
The international expansion of Tykač’s Sev.en Global Investments, which officially launched in 2021, is reminiscent of the early days of Daniel Křetínský and Patrik Tkáč’s Energy and Industrial Holding (EPH). These entrepreneurs bet on coal when others were abandoning it. “From the beginning, we’ve focused not only on energy but also on mineral extraction, which EPH hasn’t really pursued,” says Svoboda, noting that SGI also avoids heavy reliance on debt.
Highly leveraged companies are more vulnerable when unexpected events occur, such as interest rate spikes. “We rely heavily on equity as a core part of our capital structure, and we look for investments that return that equity faster than in other sectors. That’s why we can’t compete with pension funds targeting 5–6% annual returns. Perhaps that’s why both EPH and Sev.en Global Investments have independently built similar portfolios—because in fundamental sectors undergoing transformation, there’s opportunity,” Svoboda explains.
According to him, SGI’s portfolio currently has a market value of around €3 billion. Svoboda declined to comment on the group’s most recent financial results, but for 2023, SGI reported EBITDA of €432 million (CZK 10.6 billion) and revenues of €1.9 billion (CZK 47 billion). Most of the revenue came from coal and electricity sales, with Blackhawk Mining and the Australian power plants performing best due to high coking coal prices.
However, coking coal prices have dropped sharply from their peak over the past three years—from over $600 to around $180. “Coking coal is now at the opposite extreme, so the entire sector is undergoing rationalization. Weaker assets are being shed, and everyone’s waiting for margins to improve again. But we always factor in that commodity investing is cyclical. You need to make the most of the good years and ride out the weaker ones,” Svoboda says.
Oil and gas production is also in a downturn due to relatively low prices—something Tykač’s group hopes to capitalize on. Svoboda, who previously served as head of sales at the semi-state energy group ČEZ, is not a shareholder in SGI but praises the flexibility of the Tykač family office, which controls the group. In addition to Pavel Tykač, his son Michal is also actively involved.
Green Steel
Last November, SGI took another step away from traditional coal-fired power and mining. It acquired two steel mills in the UK and Scandinavia from Spanish company Celsa. These mills are among the most environmentally friendly in Europe, using electric melting furnaces powered by renewable energy.
The steelworks were originally owned by a Spanish family that had accumulated significant debt and ignored warnings from banks about breaching debt limits. After about a year of hesitation, the banks lost patience, and the court unexpectedly seized the family’s assets. The banks then prepared the steelworks for sale, and SGI successfully acquired them.
SGI is part of a broader wave of Czech large and mid-sized businesses expanding abroad in recent years. In this regard, the Czech Republic stands out in Central Europe.