When Petr Kellner, the richest Czech and the majority owner of the PPF business empire, died tragically in Alaska almost three years ago, few knew what his wife looked like. But that has changed and Renáta Kellnerová is now practically synonymous with PPF. In an interview with the Bloomberg agency, she described her ideas about the operation of the company, as well as how the group’s focus is turning more towards the West.
Since taking control of PPF, Kellner has overseen the company’s expansion and retreat from Asia. The conglomerate, which is headquartered in Prague, operates in 25 countries, employs 61,000 people and engages in activities in telecommunications, media, financial services and e-commerce.
V conversation, which Kellner conducted via email and which, according to Bloomberg, was her first public comment to the media since taking the leadership role at PPF, the executive recounted the challenging beginnings. After her husband’s unexpected death, she first had to familiarize herself with the complex activities of the company.
“The first priority was to ensure the stability of PPF and then start developing the business again,” says Kellner. “I realized that PPF is a personal thing for me and that my job is to prepare our children to one day be able to lead the group themselves.”
Kellner has already left her mark on the business empire since taking on the company’s leadership role. She oversaw a major shift away from Asia, once the group’s key source of revenue, and shifted focus back to Western markets. She chose a new chief executive and parted ways with some of her late husband’s close allies. She brought the business into full family ownership by buying out the stakes of two minority shareholders, and subsequently appointed herself and her three daughters to the board of the new holding company. All their property is stored in it.
Kellner is now the richest woman in Central Europe, the estimated net worth of the family according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index is $11.8 billion (more than 273 billion crowns). Kellner spends more and more time making key investment decisions. He cites close cooperation with PPF Executive Director Jiří Šmejc, one of Kellner’s former investment partners, as the central point of his approach.
“If the situation calls for it, we are able to decide on deals in a single weekend,” she said in an interview with Bloomberg. “At PPF, we pride ourselves on being very flexible in our response to investment opportunities,” adds the manager.
The PPF Group is not a typical investment fund with prescribed rules on what and how long to hold in the portfolio. And that, according to Kellner, is an advantage. “We can be patient,” he warns. “And that’s why short-term returns are not the primary parameter when we consider investment opportunities,” he adds.
The roots of the PPF go back to the early 1990s, to the time just after the fall of communism, when Czechoslovakia began to sell state property. To do this, it used coupon privatization, when people could exchange investment coupons for newly issued shares of companies or unit certificates of investment funds. As the PPF company developed, its assets gradually grew to the current approximately 43 billion dollars (almost 998 billion crowns), writes Bloomberg.
Thanks to the sale of state property after the fall of communism, there are now several very wealthy families in the Czech Republic. In addition to the Kellners, there is, for example, real estate tycoon Radovan Vítek or businessman Pavel Tykač, who mainly deals with energy.
2024-02-05 15:52:07
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