The supervisory board at Czech power group CEZ ignored pressure from the finance ministry to dump the current management, local media report.

Finance Minister Andrej Babis has been accumulating influence at the company – which is 70% state-owned – since he took office in early 2014. Despite his growing power however – Babis looks set to take the prime minister’s chair following elections later this year – the board shrugged off the objections of ministry of finance representatives to hand CEO Daniel Benes another four years at the helm of CEZ.

The effort to remove Benes at a board meeting on December 22 was confirmed by Babis at a press conference on January 3, CTK reports. The CEO’s mandate was due to expire at  the end of the year.

The state holds eight of the 12 seats on the board, Company representatives occupy the others. The finance ministry – under Babis’ Ano party – controls four. However, coalition leader and party rival CSSD fills three seats, with the junior partner Christian Democrats holding the other.

Babis – the billionaire owner of agricultural and chemicals conglomerate Agrofert - has been pushing to take a stronger grip of CEZ, which he sees as a cash cow for the economy. The company’s financial results have been buffeted over the last decade by the effects of a disastrous early century expansion policy – when Benes was deputy CEO – and weak power markets, as well as ongoing problems at its nuclear plants.

Babis claimed surprise that the supervisory board had voted on the issue already. "We think that to take stock of the results of CEZ, they had to wait for the AGM," said the finance minister. The general shareholder’s meeting is regularly held in June. 

However, analysts suggest the fight is nothing new. “We believe that the ministry had attempted to remove the management in the past too,” writes J&T Bank. “We consider the news neutral.”