THE 1%

Billionaire Kellner Family Gains Full Ownership of PPF Group

Peter Laca
Fri, September 1, 2023



(Bloomberg) -- The heirs of late Czech billionaire Petr Kellner acquired full ownership of the richest family office in the European Union’s eastern wing, buying out two minority owners who helped build a business empire with €40 billion ($43 billion) in assets.

Kellner’s widow Renata Kellnerova and her family bought the shares in PPF Group from Ladislav Bartonicek and Jean-Pascal Duvieusart, who each held 0.535% stakes in the investment company, according to a statement, which didn’t disclose financial terms of the transactions.

“Our minority stakes had their logic in the structure of PPF Group as founded and managed by Petr Kellner,” the two former shareholders said in the statement Friday. “Today, when the shareholding structure is divided among Petr’s heirs, the logic of PPF’s management also changed, which is why we both decided, in agreement with Renata Kellnerova, to sell our shares and simplify the shareholding structure.”

They will both remain active within PPF Group, with Bartonicek holding the post of the chairman of the board of SOTIO Biotech BV, and Duvieusart serving as chairman of the board of PPF Financial Holdings.

The Kellner family, which has a net worth of $11.7 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, has been shifting its investment focus back to western markets, following years of expansion in Asia, after Kellner died in a helicopter crash in 2021.

PPF’s key assets are businesses in telecommunications, media, financial services and e-commerce, although the group’s portfolio also includes real estate, engineering and biotechnology.

Since Kellnerova became the majority owner, she has overseen several large deals, most recently the €2.15 billion sale of telecommunication operations in Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia and Slovakia to Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Telecommunications Group Co.

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