Prague - Billionaire and the richest Czech Petr Kellner can celebrate. On Thursday, his dreams of a lifetime deal became reality.
His financial group PPF made a deal with the Italian insurance giant Generali as early as in April last year, merging their insurance companies with the Central and East European activities of the Italians.
Setting up the new business, whose crown jewel is the Czech Insurance Company (Česká pojišťovna) from PPF Group with Generali having the majority stake, was finally approved by all the anti-monopoly authorities as well as the regulations authorities, such as the European Commission or the Czech National Bank.
It was stated in a press release by the main spokesman of Generali PPF Holding Richard Kapsa, who has led communications in Česká pojišťovna until now.
Thus the contract confirming the deal, that will bring 1.1 billion euros into Kellner´s pockets and set up a firm worth 5.1 billion euros, came in force on Thursday this week.
Originally, the Kellner´s group planned to have everything finished before the end of last year. However, in the summer already, they reassessed their estimate and postponed the deadline.
Talk of the town
Last year, there was a lot of talk about Petr Kellner and his firms.
First, he attracted attention when he jumped up on Forbes List. It was for the second time that Kellner showed up on this prestigious list of the world´s richest people.
It is estimated that he doubled his wealth to six billion dollars within a year and so this Czech Bill Gates suddenly moved up close to the first 100 world´s richest men.
Speculation of the town
And then the speculations around selling Česká pojišťovna burst out into the open.
When the rumours were finally confirmed, the sale seemed to take forever. First, it was revealed that even before joining Generali, Česká pojišťovna was selling its buildings and now hasn´t got nearly any.
And then the news about selling one of the other major firms of Kellner´s imperium Home Credit popped up.
The group finally admitted that they negotiate a deal similar to the one with Generali. This time they want to join their Russian branch of Home Credit with the local Nomos Bank. However, details of the deal still remain unknown.
Breaking the silence
It came as a surprise when this usually mysterious and reserved billionaire, after many years of keeping silent, gave his first interview to the press.
Not that he revealed that much about himself but still, at least the public had a chance to have a peek into a life of someone who has attained nearly mythical status. On top of that, there was a lot of talk about the PPF Investments company, also called "the Kellner´s bankers", which manages Kellner´s billions.
This company for example gained the very last bloc of receivables from the soon ending Czech Consolidation Agency, which was for years managing bad debts taken by the state from banks because of the banking sector clean-up.
The company also appeared in the case of Ústí nad Labem-based food company Setuza, which in the past was, for a long time, connected with the controversial businessman Tomáš Pitr who recently fled the country.
First, in the spring, PPFI put capital into Setuza and became the Via Chem Group´s partner. However, they have just recently finished their mission in Setuza.
Meanwhile, they helped Setuza to avoid the execution, ordered by the government because of the problematic billion receivable. Finally, Setuza paid CZK1.1 billion buyout.
