Thriller shopper: the elusive West Ham investor Daniel Křetínský

Daniel Křetínský has made a fortune snapping up leftovers from the outdated financial system. The Czech billionaire owns a clutch of coal firms, and lately he has made waves with investments in pillars of the outdated financial system reminiscent of excessive avenue retailers, supermarkets and newspapers.

Křetínský holds his playing cards so near his chest that he gained the moniker of the “Czech Sphinx” from a Polish journal. The nickname has caught, however the businessman’s profile exterior his homeland has grown after a spree of acquisitions.

That has included soccer golf equipment – the surest method for a rich businessman to be seen – beginning with Sparta Prague in 2004 and adopted by West Ham final week. The West Ham stake, reportedly value between £180m and £200m for 27%, has already roused hopes from the membership’s supporters of big-money signings, though neither Křetínský nor the membership have revealed any particulars of their plans.

On the inventory market, Křetínský has additionally gone for family names, build up huge positions in Sainsbury’s and Royal Mail, whose executives confirmed that he has mentioned technique with them.

His bets on each seem to have paid off handsomely already: since his funding car Vesa Fairness Funding elevated its stake in Sainsbury’s to 9.9% in April, the grocery store’s share value has risen by a fifth, giving paper positive factors of properly over £100m. Royal Mail’s share value has nearly tripled since Vesa first purchased in. On Thursday, Royal Mail delivered a £200m dividend, from which Vesa ought to garner about £38m, based mostly on a 19% shareholding that’s now value greater than £900m.

Křetínský declined to be interviewed. A spokesperson mentioned that “he isn’t afraid to go in opposition to the tide – when others promote, he buys and vice versa”. Vesa considers itself to be a strategic, long-term investor, the spokesperson added.

Within the US, Křetínský has purchased stakes within the division retailer Macy’s and the coach retailer Foot Locker, whereas in Europe he holds positions within the German retailer turned wholesaler Metro and France’s Le Monde newspaper.

The latter buy was maybe his most controversial, with journalists at considered one of France’s newspapers of file alarmed at what a Czech investor who made his cash in coal and fuel pipelines in jap Europe may wish to do with a title that experiences prominently on the local weather disaster and on Russia’s more and more authoritarian chief, Vladimir Putin.

But the paper’s reporters haven’t discovered any proof to again up these fears. In a uncommon interview in 2019 with the New York Occasions, Křetínský insisted he was completely happy to stay a minority shareholder at Le Monde, and that he had fallen in love with France whereas watching movies from the nation as a baby.

The son of a computing professor and a senior choose, Křetínský studied political science after which regulation to doctorate degree at Masaryk College in Brno. He joined J&T financial institution in 1999, changing into an fairness companion and getting into the world of dealmakers reminiscent of Patrik Tkáč, a J&T founder who additionally co-owns Vesa, and Petr Kellner, who died because the Czech Republic’s richest man in a helicopter accident in March. Kretinsky’s long-term companion, Anna Kellnerova, is Kellner’s daughter.

When Energetický a průmyslový holding (Vitality and Industrial Holding, or EPH) was spun out of the financial institution in 2009, he grew to become a shareholder. He and Tkáč purchased out the opposite companions in 2014, and Křetínský now holds 50%, whereas Tkáč holds 44%. The corporate purchased a collection of coal crops and fuel belongings, together with pipelines and storage, and claims to make use of greater than 24,000 individuals throughout Europe.

EPH has purchased 4 energy crops within the UK and, to the shock of some observers, has set about upgrading them. EPH demolished the coal plant at Eggborough in North Yorkshire to construct a brand new fuel model, and transformed Lynemouth in Northumberland to run on biomass as an alternative. In 2017 it purchased two fuel energy crops from Centrica: one at Langage in Devon and one other at South Humber Financial institution in Lincolnshire.

Křetínský has additionally garnered different hallmarks of the billionaire class: his title appeared within the Panama Papers leak of offshore recordsdata, in reference to a British Virgin Islands firm referred to as Fantastic Yacht Holdings Restricted. Křetínský’s spokesperson mentioned the corporate was used to switch possession of a catamaran that’s stored largely within the Caribbean. There was no tax evasion or concealment of possession, the spokesperson mentioned.