Petr Kellner

Petr Kellner graduated from the University of Economics, Prague Faculty of Industrial Economics, in 1987. After the Velvet revolution he worked for the Czech company Impromat, an importer and seller of Ricoh photocopiers. While working for that company, he met Milan Maděryč and Milan Vinkler.

In 1991, after the announcement of Czechoslovak voucher privatization he founded, with Maděryč and Vinkler, the investment fund PPF (První privatizační fond). In 1992, PPF investiční společnost a.s. was established and the funds’ names were changed from privatisation to investment. The funds were very successful and purchased stock of more than 200 corporations with value over 5 billion CZK.

Česká pojišťovna

In 1995 and 1996, PPF bought a 20% stake in the largest Czech insurance company, Česká pojišťovna and started to manage it. Later PPF acquired more shares and became the dominant (93%) owner in 2001, when PPF bought large stakes of shares from Komerční banka and the Czech state. With help of these profitable transactions, the last investors from voucher privatization were bought out and Petr Kellner became the dominant owner of PPF group.

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He took the utmost advantage of his nation’s privatization reforms. With the help of vouchers and loans he collected 20% stake in Ceska Pojistovna, an insurer that was burdened with bad loans at that period. He finally got cent percent control when he put together a $170 million rescue package. The insurance company now is the largest and its value is estimated to be at $2.7 billion. This makes Kellner the Czech Republic’s first billionaire.

Petr Kellner invested $160 million in the hugely popular Czech Nova TV in the year 2000. He took advantage of the ugly fight between American cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder and a Czech businessman Vladimir Zelezny originally running TV Nova, the biggest television station in the Czech Republic, since 1994. Though later he sold his stake to American billionaire Ronald Lauder again but for a $580 million net profit.

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Highlights

* He took the utmost advantage of his nation’s privatization reforms.

==BENETTING FROM ECONOMIC / REGULATORY DISCONTINUITIES==