PARIS, France — A billionaire with pursuits in soccer golf equipment, media retailers, supermarkets, and now the potential new proprietor of Britain’s Royal Mail, Czech Daniel Kretinsky retains a stubbornly low profile internationally.
The 48-year-old made his fortune within the vitality trade, the place he controls considered one of Central Europe’s largest teams, EPH.
However lately he has additionally change into a serious participant in France’s media scene and amassed a fortune estimated by Forbes journal at greater than $9 billion.
His $4.6-billion takeover supply for Royal Mail was accepted by the postal service’s board on Wednesday.
READ: UK’s Royal Mail proprietor accepts takeover supply from a Czech billionaire
The deal is prone to push the reclusive billionaire additional into the highlight in Britain, the place he already owned a stake within the postal service in addition to 27 p.c of Premier League soccer membership West Ham.
His transfer into soccer introduced scrutiny from British tabloids, which labeled him the “Czech Sphinx” and detailed his buy of a London dwelling for £65 million ($85 million) in 2015.
The newspapers additionally chronicled his relationship with Anna Kellnerova, a Czech showjumper 20 years his junior. The pair have since break up up.
Jap stereotypes
Kretinsky has in any other case saved his personal life out of the headlines, although he has provided some insights into his enterprise technique.
He instructed Forbes in an interview final 12 months that Britain, France, and Germany had been an important nations for his firm — and he appreciated questions could be requested about him.
“It’s all the time the identical, if you seem, within the first place there’s the stereotype known as Jap Europe,” he mentioned.
Individuals instantly presumed some hyperlink to Russia, he mentioned, which he felt was unfair on condition that his nation had spent nearly half a century underneath Soviet communist affect.
However he accepted the have to be extra open about his companies and claimed to have made efforts already in France.
“Media protection of our actions is so large that we and I are being perceived as part of their atmosphere,” he mentioned.
Kretinsky apparently developed a love of France throughout a spell finding out within the central metropolis of Dijon and burst onto the enterprise scene when he purchased into prestigious media manufacturers.
He owns a clutch of French magazines together with the style bible Elle, bailed out the left-wing newspaper Liberation, and owns a stake within the TF1 group.
Web ‘chaos’
Kretinsky was born within the jap Czech metropolis of Brno and raised in the course of the gradual collapse of communism.
He’s recognized in his homeland for his vitality pursuits, in addition to his possession of the soccer establishment Sparta Prague.
His story just isn’t precisely rags-to-riches — his stepfather is a outstanding artwork photographer and his mom served on the nation’s constitutional court docket between 2004 and 2014.
Colleagues and collaborators painting him as an especially clever businessman and arduous employee who usually sends mails to employees within the early hours of the morning.
Jean-Michel Mazalerat, former head of GazelEnergie, a agency owned not directly by Kretinsky, instructed AFP final 12 months that rising up underneath communism may clarify his media investments.
“When he says he’s investing in freedom of the press, I imagine he’s very honest,” mentioned Mazalerat.
Kretinsky echoed the sentiment in his Forbes interview, lamenting that web content material had descended into “full chaos”.
“Reality is ceasing to exist, as a result of there isn’t a one with the authority to resolve that one thing is nonsense,” he mentioned.
“There’s nothing democratic about this.”