Last April, the Chinese conglomerate CITIC Group acquired a majority in the media agency Médea, which until then had been controlled by businessman and moderator Jaromír Soukup. At the beginning of July this year, the Chinese were able to remove Soukup from the company’s management and put their people in the highest positions. This finally allowed the new owners to look into the functioning of the company and see what condition it is in. Less than a month later, the Chinese left the agency – they sold their share 55.8 percent back to Soukup.
CITIC Group, represented in the Czech Republic by Jaroslav Tvrdík, among others, has been striving since 2019 to carry out an audit that would enable them to find out the true state of one of the largest media agencies in the Czech Republic. Soukup’s media empire has been struggling with debt for a long time, and the Chinese then under the condition of an audit they promised to solve the bad economic situation.
However, as soon as the auditors started studying accounting, Soukup withdrew from the agreement and ended the audit. Now – when Soukup had lost the management of Médea – the new owners could re-enter the audit.
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The daily N informed about the audit at the beginning of July and confirmed it among other things, the then head of the company Martin Konrád, who was appointed by the Chinese at the head of the company. “The audit is ongoing, it is done by PwC,” he told Deník N at the time.
Now the company’s management does not want to comment on the audit. When asked whether the audit had started at all or whether it was still ongoing, Martin Konrád Deník N only answered: “No comment.” Jaroslav Tvrdík from the management of the Czech subsidiary of the Chinese holding did not want to comment either.
Breakup with Soukup
The Chinese are anyway from the agency The media withdrew their share a few weeks after it was controlled They sold it to Soukup. According to the sources of Deník N, the price should have been between
