In October 2007, Skoda Praha Invest signed a contract with Alstom Power (Stuttgart) and Alstom Brno to supply a new boiler for CEZ's Ledvice for 400 mil. eur. In March 2008, an executive director of Skoda Praha Invest at the time, Radek Bencik, moved to Alstom's Czech boiler division in Brno. And five years later, the boiler was still not in operation.....



Ledvice's twin towers. But where's the boiler?

Today, Radek Bencik is CEO of the German company, NET4GAS, owned by RWE. But he has also been CEO of the French company, Alstom, owned by Bouygues; the Czech companies, Skoda Praha and Skoda Praha Invest, owned by CEZ; and the Russian company, Skoda JS, owned by OMZ.

And he’s still only 45 or thereabouts.

How did he manage it? Let’s work backwards. Radek Bencik joined NET4GAS in late 2011, having spent three years leading Alstom’s regional thermal services division –boilers to you and me.

He joined Alstom in early 2008, straight from CEZ’s EPC contractor, Skoda Praha Invest, where he was an executive director for two years. Skoda Praha Invest hired Bencik from OMZ’s Skoda JS in 2006, where he had been CEO since 2004.

The high point of Bencik’s career thus far came in late 2007 when Skoda Praha Invest signed a 400 million euro deal with Alstom to supply a 141 meter high so-called "tower boiler" to CEZ’s lignite-fired Ledvice power plant. The boiler house, at 143 metres, is apparently the tallest building in the Czech Republic.

The ink had barely dried on the Ledvice contract before Bencik was off again –to Alstom Brno, the firm that had just been contracted to deliver Ledvice’s new boiler.

But Alstom Brno and its new employee didn’t deliver. Readers will know that the boiler has been a great disappointment to CEZ. Five years later, Bencik’s former employer, CEZ, is today demanding compensation from Bencik’s former employer, Alstom, for the delay in putting the Ledvice plant into operation, a delay, it seems, that has been caused by problems with the boiler.

Presumably, the contract that Skoda Praha Invest negotiated with Alstom on behalf of CEZ in 2007 contained penalty clauses for late delivery. Perhaps a journalist might like to ask CEZ about that?

I only mention it because of the unfortunate timing of Radek Bencik’s departure from Skoda Praha Invest. Does it not strike you as odd that Bencik was hired by Alstom so soon after Alstom had been awarded such a handsome contract?

Let’s go further back. In January 2006, the supervisory board of CEZ’s Skoda Praha, under its chairman, Vladimir Johanes (think Tuscany and the last foreign minister of Soviet Czechoslovakia), its vice chairman Daniel Benes (think nuclear fuel dumps and Liechtenstein), and board member Vladimir Schmalz (think Albania and Bulgaria), announced that it had appointed Radek Bencik as the company’s new CEO and as an executive director of Skoda Praha Invest.

He had spent the previous five years at Skoda JS. In 2004, when Skoda JS was acquired by the Russian state, in the guise of OMZ, Bencik was appointed the firm’s CEO.

Readers with a good memory will recall that Skoda JS was part of Skoda Holding, acquired by the Appian Group (Roman et al) from the Czech state in 2003 at a price that gave new meaning to the word ‘friendly’.

It seems, then, that Skoda Holding ten years ago is the reason for Bencik’s remarkable success in the Czech energy sector –indeed like the success of so many others his age.

It's called being in the Right Place at the Right Time. Martin Roman, Jiri Zapletal, Tomas Krsek, Michal Korecky, Jiri Divis and Marek Cmejla were all there then, together with Bencik.

And as with Bencik, the high point in their careers has been achieved with CEZ, either as managers in the firm or as its suppliers.

In the case of Bencik, as we have seen, he was both a manager and a supplier, although not (quite) at the same time. And in the case of Roman ...well, the jury is still out.

This group of remarkable young men clearly all belong to what might be called 'Alliance Skoda'. But who built the alliance, and what is the nature of its intentions towards the Czech state and its energy champion, these are less clear.

P.S. And looking forwards, the likelihood that Bencik will be kept on by the new owners of NET4GAS is high, given the firm's exposure to Russian gas.