The government gradually changed its previous strategy and approach to Vítkovice. The former intention to sell off Vítkovice piecemeal was revised, and a request for proposals was announced for the sale of Vítkovice as a whole. Within this process, the Czech state eventually accepted the offer of Lahvárna Ostrava for the purchase of an ownership interest and the redemption of debts held by the Czech Consolidation Agency Vítkovice a.s. The offer was especially accepted by the government owing to the experience of Lahvárna Ostrava in the area of acquisition and restructuring and its competences and realistic business plans. The new owner soon proved that their intentions and visions were viable and would relieve Vítkovice of the difficulties caused prior to its privatisation by the incompetent interventions of the statehired restructuring companies. Thanks to Lahvárna Ostrava and Jan Světlík, management of the holding type was introduced, individual subsidiaries were transformed and the traditional ship programme was resumed. The sophisticated production of engineering technologies for the mining, chemical, petrochemical and energy companies was revived. Thanks to strategic acquisitions, the holding structure was complemented with engineering capacities, foreign branches, and an assembly and logistics background for the supplies of comprehensive engineering and power engineering turnkey plants. In 2008, the Vítkovice holding started using a new brand - Vítkovice Machinery Group. An extensive investment program was launched, the value of which had reached CZK 10 billion by 2011.
The group made investments in key production areas - both traditional and new, in order to establish itself on the globalised market of the third millennium. In addition, a new hall for the production of diaphragm walls was built, together with a modern line for the production of steel cylinders, a line for compressed natural gas (CNG) in Poland, and the development of the Green Technology project. The strategic CNG line project requires specific attention - including the transition of the company’s own means of transport and cars to CNG and the evelopment of locomotives and mobile virtual pipelines, and the building of public fast-filling CNG stations. The largest investment in recent years has been the operation of a forge shop for the third millennium, with a new fast-forging line which is unrivalled in Central and Eastern Europe. Considerable attention is also given to the modern segment of information technologies. Vítkovice operates within a wide range of
production segments that complement one another and make use of each other’s results, and has become the world’s leader in selected
engineering segments.