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Business


CZECH BILLIONAIRE KELLNER KILLED IN ALASKAN HELICOPTER CRASH

 * Kellner started investment group PPF after fall of communism
 * PPF negotiating bank merger, mulling telecoms unit IPO


Petr KellnerPhotographer: Jirasek Vaclav/CTK/PPF
By

Peter Laca

and Krystof Chamonikolas

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March 29, 2021, 5:46 AM GMTUpdated onMarch 29, 2021, 4:27 PM GMT


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Petr Kellner, the reclusive Czech billionaire who built a business empire with
$52 billion in assets over three decades to become the country’s richest man,
died in a helicopter crash in Alaska. He was 56.

Kellner was among five people killed in the March 27 crash of the Airbus AS350
B3 chopper, which went down near the Knik Glacier in Alaska, according to local
authorities. One passenger survived and is in stable condition. Kellner had been
on vacation at a remote luxury lodge located 40-minute flight from Anchorage,
according to a statement cited by the Associated Press.




After the fall of communism in the Czech Republic, Kellner had forged a holding
company with interest spanning finance, telecommunications, manufacturing, media
and biotechnology. Kellner’s death coincides with a critical juncture for the
company, called PPF Group NV: the country’s largest private-equity group is
negotiating the sale of its Czech and Slovak financial assets; it’s also nearing
conclusion of a review of its telecommunication infrastructure unit.



“As a manager, he was the most content-oriented and least hierarchical person
I’ve met,” said Jean-Pascal Duvieusart, who first got to know Kellner in 1999
and later joined his company, becoming a co-owner.

Going forward, minority shareholder Ladislav Bartonicek will manage all of PPF’s
operations, the company said.



Petr Kellner

Source: PPF Group NV

Kellner, an avid snowboarder and kite surfer, had a net worth of $15.7 billion,
according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Born in 1964 in what was then
Czechoslovakia, Kellner studied economics and worked as a salesman for an
office-equipment distributor shortly after the Communist Party imploded in what
became known as the Velvet Revolution in 1989.



When the state began selling assets such as industrial firms and refineries in a
voucher-for-shares program, Kellner set up a fund in 1991 and acquired stakes in
202 companies. The fund wound up handling the sixth-biggest batch of assets
offered for sale at the time, according to the firm, which then became known as
PPF Group, and in which Kellner controlled about 99%.

Read more: PPF Is Said to Value Cetin at $8 Billion Before Potential Deal



Using vouchers and a loan, PPF started accumulating assets and built a 20% stake
in Ceska Pojistovna, the country’s largest insurer, which Kellner turned around
and into the bedrock of his wealth. He cashed out in 2013, selling the insurance
assets to Italy’s Generali in a $3.3 billion deal.


GLOBAL ASSETS



PPF’s broad operations include the Home Credit Group unit, one of the largest
consumer lenders in central and eastern Europe. The company has also expanded
into China, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Kazakhstan., and
PPF’s assets totaled 44 billion euros ($52 billion) as of June 2020.



In the two pending transactions, PPF is negotiating a sale of financial assets
to Moneta Money Bank AS in a share swap that could give PPF control over the
Czech lender. The review of the telecom unit, called Cetin Group BV, may include
a sale of a minority stake in the company, either directly or through the stock
market.

Read more: How a Bet on China Consumers Is Backfiring for Richest Czech



While Kellner wasn’t publicly active in the political arena, his business in
China caused some controversy at home. He had been among business leaders
accompanying President Milos Zeman, a promoter of closer business ties with
China, on his trips to Beijing.

Late in 2019, PPF and Home Credit sought to fend off allegations in local media
that the lending arm had hired a public-relations agency to help improve China’s
image back at home. Home Credit said its goal was only to “rationalize the
public debate” and “weaken extreme positions in the public sphere” by presenting
facts about doing business and life in the Asian nation.


MOUNTAIN RETREAT



Kellner had been a guest at the Tordrillo Mountain Lodge, which organizes
heliskiing trips into the Alaska back-country. After the helicopter, which is
owned by Soloy Helicopters of Wasilla, Alaska, didn’t return on the evening of
March 27, the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center dispatched a team to the last
known location, where they discovered the debris and managed to airlift out the
sole survivor, according to a statement.



Kellner kept a low public profile and was known to closely guard his private
life. His company’s annual reports were a rare platform through which he shared
his thoughts about business and personal priorities. In his most recent musings,
the 2019 report, he lamented the damage wrought by the coronavirus crisis,
saying “for someone like me, who loves to create and build, there is nothing
worse than seeing decline and destruction.”



“He was very private because he was looking for the pleasures of the thing he
was doing rather than looking for the pleasure of being recognized for the thing
he was going,” said Duvieusart.

— With assistance by Lenka Ponikelska, and Michael Sin

(Updates with announcement on PPF’s new leadership, comments from shareholder.)




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