History and tradition
From VKD, national enterprise, to the joint-stock company Energie - stavební a báňská, a.s.
Due to its history and development, Energie - stavební a báňská, is a typical representative of Czech building industry. It is an image of what the sector had to pass through in order to reach its current stabilisation period. The purpose of the consequent information is to provide a brief, nostalgia-free account of this development, from the beginnings of the national enterprise Výstavba kamenouhelných dolů Kladno (VKD), through transformation, up to the contemporary joint-stock company Energie - stavební a báňská a.s.
From its very beginning in 1958, the national enterprise VKD developed in a very dynamic way up to the seventies of the 20.century. The end of the seventies and the whole decade of the eighties was nevertheless marked by a decrease of most of the main indexes, for the hard acquired positions had been vacated, namely the constructions of collectors and metro. In 1989, VKD consisted of just two works, with significant administrative load, high general expenses and a negative trading income.
In 1991 the VDK management submitted a privatisation project within the framework of the so-called coupon privatisation, which was, after its discussion in the Ministry of Economy and Ministry of Management of State Property and its Privatisation, approved by the economic council and subsequently by the government of the Czech Republic. As per May 1st 1992, the joint-stock company Energie Kladno was founded, which became the succession organisation of the state-owned enterprise VKD. A new prospectus was demonstrated in this new name that is to engage in research and use of combustible mine gases absorbed in coal seams in addition to construction activities. This prospectus has unfortunately not been realised yet, in spite of numerous experiments and tests.
Nevertheless, energy remained part of the company´s name, and in 2002, it was supplemented by the postscript - stavební a báňská - construction and mining. The company has played an important role in the completion of the Prague metro system, constructed a number of collectors, ensured sanitation of undergrounds of several town centres and executed a number of industrial and civil constructions. From 1990 up to now, the company management and the whole team managed to implement a requiring transformation of the state-owned enterprise VKD into Energie Kladno a.s. and from 2002 onwards the joint-stock company Energie -stavební a báňská a.s.. The changes influenced not only ownership rights, but especially the production profile of the company. Transformation consisted in a sudden change of orientation from constructions for the mining industry to the constructions of universal nature - from engineering to civil engineering, while the interconnection of construction and mining activities, based on solid grounds, became an important competitive advantage.
