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Photo: Bloomberg LP – |
A helicopter crash-carrying skiers to the Knik Glacier in Alaska last month ended the life of the richest man in the Czech Republic, Petr Kellner (who in Bulgaria is the owner of bTV and Telenor – ed. note). It also triggered the largest wealth transfer in Eastern Europe since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Bloomberg reports.
The stake is a fortune worth $ 15.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and the management of the conglomerate PPF Group, with assets worth 44 billion euros as of June last year, of which Kellner controlled 99%.
Although the widow of the 56-year-old entrepreneur and his four children must inherit his fortune, it is unclear who will replace him in the company. From a business point of view, minority shareholder Ladislav Bartonicek will manage the company’s operations, as Kellner’s family did not play a significant role in PPF’s day-to-day operations.
“As an organized person, I’m sure Peter Kellner has taken care of everything to simplify the process as much as possible,” said Peter Kinkle, an associate partner at PWC Legal, which represents local and international clients. “Usually the whole transfer takes a few months and I see no reason in this case to take more than a year,” he added.
Although Kellner has played a key role in negotiating some of PPF’s deals in the past, the group will be able to continue without its founder, said Jean-Pascal Duviozar, a minority shareholder and CEO of PPF’s financial division, Home Credit Group. Analysts at Ceska Sporitelna and J&T Banka say they do not expect immediate consequences.
Critical time
“Peter has set up a management that relies on a large team of very experienced professionals and a structure in which much of the responsibility is concentrated in individual companies,” Duviozar said.
Kellner was among five people killed in a March 27 crash of an Airbus AS350 B3 helicopter that crashed about 80km northeast of Anchorage. The billionaire, who was an avid snowboarder and kite surfer, was on vacation at a remote luxury hut.
His death comes at a critical time as PPF seeks to acquire Moneta Money Bank, which is listed on the Prague Stock Exchange, and is considering a potential sale of a minority stake in its telecommunications and infrastructure division, Cetin Group.
PPF Chief Financial Officer Katerina Zhiraskova said she expects the merger with Moneta to take place and that the group is resolving some technical aspects of the ownership, the Czech daily Hospodarske novine reported. She does not believe that family members will join the PPF in the foreseeable future, although they are eligible if they wish.
The group is recovering from coronavirus-related losses in its Home Credit division. Its consumer lender in Asia and Eastern Europe returned to moderate profits in the second half of 2020, after recording a record level of bad loans in the first six months of last year.
The other major division of Kellner’s large business empire, the telecoms in Central and Eastern Europe, is relatively unaffected by the pandemic.
Copier dealer
Born in 1964 in what was then Czechoslovakia, Kellner studied economics and worked as a copier seller for Ricoh shortly after the end of the communist regime after the Gentle Revolution of 1989. His life changed when the new capitalist state began selling assets by handing out vouchers. which could be exchanged for shares in companies. Kellner took advantage of this with some partners and set up a fund in 1991, which acquired shares in 202 companies. He later became PPF.
Now the company’s activities range from finance, telecoms and industrial production to media and biotechnology. The Home Credit division, established in 1997, is one of the largest lenders in Central and Eastern Europe and has expanded to countries including China, India and Indonesia. Kellner’s business in China is causing some controversy in his homeland, as local intelligence includes the Asian country on its list of the biggest threats to national security.
After falling to $ 8.6 billion in May last year, at the start of the pandemic, its wealth grew amid rising shares of banks and telecommunications companies. With his wife Renata, he founded the Kellner Family Foundation, which donates funds to educational, cultural and health causes.
“Above all, he cared a lot about the family. He spent a lot of time with his family and loved all his children, ”says Duviozar.
Kellner’s wealth transfer could be facilitated by the fact that his extensive business network, operating in different industries and regions, is fully integrated under the PPF holding structure, Kinkl said.
“Managing such a large legacy should not be much different from managing the property of an average businessman who has a company abroad and several villas in Spain or Florida,” he said.
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