10 Wealthiest People from Czech Republic

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10 Wealthiest People from Czech Republic

The Czech Republic has a developed, high-income export-oriented social market economy based on services, manufacturing, and innovation, with a welfare state and a European social model. 

It has a GDP per capita rate that is 91% of the EU average. The Czech National Bank, whose independence is guaranteed by the Constitution, is in charge of monetary policy. 

Members of the Czech “super rich” club are also some of the country’s most divisive citizens. They may be admired, but many of their countrymen believe that rich Czechs are only wealthy because they acquired it under dubious circumstances.

1. Radovan Vitek

Man holding magazine. Photo by David Suarez. Unsplash

Radovan Vitek is a real estate investor and the majority shareholder of CPI Property Group, which owns 418 properties totaling €9.8 billion, including offices, retail, 12,306 residential units, and 10,488 hotel beds.

Radovan Vitek began his real estate career during Slovakia’s voucher privatization in the 1990s, before returning to the Czech Republic in 1997. Vitek bought Boleslavsko, an investment fund, in 1996 and turned it into his primary real estate investment vehicle (now CPI). CPI acquired a diverse portfolio of real estate and land in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the early 2000s. As the Czech Republic prepared to join the European Union in May 2004, his primary focus was the rapidly developing retail sector.

Forbes estimated his net worth to be $4.4 billion as of September 2020. He paid £13.5 million for Rydinghurst, a 17th-century house and 200-acre estate in Surrey, England, from British rock star Ringo Starr, so that his children could be educated in England. 

2. Daniel Ketnsk

Daniel Ketnsk is a businessman and lawyer who is the CEO and 94% owner of Energetick a prmyslov holding (EPH), the largest energy group in Central Europe. EPH, employs over 25,000 people, distributes and supplies electricity as well as storage and transmission of natural gas.

During the 2020 market crash, he dominated the stock market by betting on companies such as Macy’s, Foot Locker, Sainsbury, and Royal Mail.  Kretinsky is also a shareholder in the French newspaper Le Monde and the German retail giant Metro AG., co-owner and president of football club AC Sparta Prague, and director and major shareholder of English football club West Ham United.

Kretinsky is estimated to be worth $4 billion (£3 billion) by Forbes.

3. Karel Komarek

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Karel Komarek is an entrepreneur with a net worth of $5.3 billion. Mr. Komarek, a newcomer to the billionaire ranks, rose to prominence after cashing out of his family’s conglomerate in 2010. He also acquired the group’s oil and gas assets at the time, while his father and sister took over the machinery division.

Karel began his career in the family trading business in the early 1990s. During the Czech Republic’s privatization period, the Komarek family purchased shares in various oil and gas and machinery companies, combining them all into the KKCG group.

Karel Komarek now owns Moravske Naftove Doly, the Czech Republic’s largest crude oil and gas company, and plans to merge it with Russia’s Gazprom.

4. Andrej Babiš

Andrej Babiš. Photo by David Sedlecký. Wikimedia

Andrej Babiš, dubbed the “Czech Donald Trump,” was elected Prime Minister of the Czech Republic in December 2017 and will leave office in December 2021. His fortune stems from Agrofert, which owns over 210 businesses ranging from agriculture to renewable energy to media.

He retired from daily management of Agrofert in 2013 as the leader of the political party ANO (which means “Yes”). Prior to the election, he was required to place Agrofert in trust in order to comply with Czech conflict-of-interest legislation. Babiš started out as a fertilizer trader. He also worked in Morocco, where he gained foreign trade experience. His estimated net worth is 3.5 billion USD. 

5. Pavel Baudiš

Pavel Baudiš. Photo by Milan Bureš. Wikimedia

Pavel Baudiš, a software engineer, wrote his first antivirus program in 1988 after a friend sent him a floppy disk containing the “Vienna” computer virus. He and Eduard Kucera, with whom he had previously worked at the Research Institute of Mathematical Machines, cofounded ALWIL in April of that year to sell the software. His estimated net worth is $2.5B.

Following the fall of Communism in 1989, the two split to form what would become Avast. Avast, which secures online activities for over 435 million users and is now led by an outside CEO, went public in 2018. Its long-term goals are loftier: to protect everything in your home that is connected to the internet, from thermostats to webcams.

6. Ivan Chrenko

Ivan Chrenko is a businessman who serves as the chairman and majority owner of the HB Reavis real estate development company. According to Forbes, Chrenko became the first Slovak billionaire in March 2017, with an estimated net worth of US$1.1 billion.  Prior to Chrenko, Andrej Babi was the first person of Slovak origin to have a net worth of more than $1 billion, but he later became a Czech citizen.

Ivan Chrenko co-owned HB Reavis with Slovak multi-millionaire Viliam Pank and served as its CEO from 1994 to October 2013. In the mid-1990s, he cofounded his first company with Viliam Pank, specializing in audio equipment and electrical engineering. They joined AB Reavis one year after it was founded in 1994. In Bratislava, AB Reavis specialized in real estate development. 

Chrenko’s first major success came with the development of the Aupark shopping malls in various cities throughout Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

7. Pavel Tyka

Pavel Tykac, a coal, energy, and real estate investor, began as a computer distributor in the early 1990s, putting his profits into a small regional bank. During the Czech Republic’s privatization program, he and four colleagues cofounded Motoinvest, which specialized in hostile takeovers.

His most valuable assets are two Czech coal mining companies and a power plant he owns through the Lichtenstein-based Sev.en Energy Group. Sev.en Energy acquired a 50% stake in InterGen, which operates power plants in the United Kingdom and Australia, in 2019. His estimated net worth according to Forbes is $3.1B.

8. Jaroslav Hascak

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Jaroslav Hascak is a cofounder of Penta Investments, which invests in healthcare, banking, real estate, and aviation. Penta, which he co-owns with Mark Dospiva, owns a controlling stake in Privatbanka, the Dr. Max pharmacy chain, and the Fortuna sports betting operator.

Hascak and Czech Dospiva, who were both studying in Beijing at the time, began importing Chinese textiles into Czechoslovakian chain stores. During Slovakia’s privatization in 1996, Penta acquired control of the country’s largest fund for only 20% of its true market value.

He is a hands-on manager who has created a highly competitive culture within the company called System Up or Out, which is designed to weed out poor performers.

9. Ivo Lukaovi

Ivo Lukaovi is the founder and chairman of Seznam.cz, a Czech Internet portal. He is the 15th richest person in the Czech Republic, according to Forbes magazine, with assets worth around $350 million.

10. Zdenk Bakala

Zdenk Bakala is a businessman and investor. He has interests in mining, energy, and finance, and he owns the media company Economia, which publishes Hospodáské noviny and Respekt magazine, among other publications. 

According to Forbes, Bakala is the tenth-wealthiest person in the Czech Republic as of 2017. His charitable activities are managed by the Bakala Foundation.