Czech Billionaire Group Scrutinised: The Difficulty of Decoupling State and Private Business

The PPF investment group continues to undermine Czech democracy

26 June 2024

Albin Sybera

Contributing Editor

As the PPF investment group navigates controversies and probes across Europe and beyond, its entanglement with political influences and market dynamics reveals a complex legacy that continues to evolve in the post-Kellner era.

The Prague-headquartered PPF investment group has recently attracted international media attention.

This follows turmoil at the largest commercial television station in Slovakia and, more notably, reports of the European Commission launching a probe into some of PPF’s dealings. The probe concerns PPF’s €2.2 billion sale of its telecommunications assets in Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and Serbia to the United Arab Emirates’s state-backed e& (or Etisalat) in the summer of 2023. Experts say this marks the inaugural EU probe under the new Foreign Subsidies Regulation, targeting significant players in PPF and e&.

The group’s investments encompass diverse sectors such as banking, financial services, telecommunications, media, biotechnology, real estate and industry, spanning markets across Europe, Asia and to a lesser extent also North America.

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Albin Sybera

Contributing Editor

Contributing Editor. Albin is a freelance journalist, consultant and a former clerk at the State Environmental Fund of the Czech Republic. Besides Visegrad Insight, his texts can be also found at Britské listy or Balkan Insight and he is also a news reporter covering Czechia and Slovakia at bne IntelliNews.

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