Product details

In the early 2000s, MOL, the newly privatised Hungarian Oil and Gas concern, considers acquiring a controlling stake in TVK (Tiszai Vegyi Kombinat), a downstream customer specialising in the production of polymers. The case highlights the tension between long-term competitive growth strategy and short-term operational issues and cash considerations in the context of this particular decision. It also provides the opportunity to explore the broader strategic challenges that this company faces if it wants to stay alive in the consolidating central European oil market. This market is particularly interesting and unique after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It faces deregulation, privatisation and major consolidation as the region's economies move into market economies. MOL, in particular, is a very interesting company, which despite being a small player could successfully challenge Royal Dutch Shell (Shell), Austria's OMV (Austrian Mineral Oil Administration) and large Russian oil companies with its bold acquisitions, thus creating one of the first and largest multinational companies of the region.