Petr Kellner Net Worth & Biography

Czech business tycoon Petr Kellner left behind a $19 billion fortune when he died in a helicopter crash on a trip to Alaska. The 56-year-old was reported to have been killed alongside four other people when their Airbus AS350 B3 chopper crashed over the mountains in Alaska on the night of Saturday the 27th of March 2021. Mr. Kellner rose to prominence and respectable success by taking advantage of business prospects after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe.

He was worth several billion at the time of his death, which registered him as the Czech Republic’s richest businessman. The business mogul attended the University of Economics in Prague and graduated from the Faculty of Industrial Economics in 1986. Throughout the 1990s, he distributed photocopying machines and office supplies, which brought him into contact with business partners Milan Vinkler and Milan Maderyc.

In 1991, the three men started the PPF Group, an investment company that capitalized on the country’s scheme to privatize multiple state-owned businesses. The group’s first major investment was its procurement of Ceska Pojistovna, the country’s largest insurer at the time, according to a statement obtainable on the PPF website. The company quickly expanded and branched into the nearby nations of Russia and Slovakia, investing in gold and silver mining, telecommunications, banking, and insurance. By mid-2020, PPF’s assets totaled around $51.8 billion after investing in emerging markets in Eastern European countries and building a presence in the United States and Asia. PPF is also the majority owner of consumer lender Home Credit, a company that has grown in China and almost all over Southeast Asia, as well as a group of telecommunications companies in Eastern and Central Europe including the Czech Republic. More details follow below.

Early Life: Childhood, Education

He was born in 1964 in Česká Lípa, then in Czechoslovakia. Most of his childhood days were spent in Liberec where his parents raised him in the company of his siblings and relatives.
For his education, Kellner attended the University of Economics in Prague and graduated with his degree in industrial economics in the year 1986.

Professional Life: Entrepreneurial Career

The Czech Republic’s former richest man, Petr Kellner, started his career in the early 1990’s selling office supplies. He then started a small investment fund to buy a controlling interest in the biggest insurer in the country during its privatization.

In 1991, after the announcement of voucher privatization in Czechoslovak, he teamed up with Milan Vinkler and Milan Maderyc to establish the investment fund PPF. After the PPF was established, the funds’ names were changed to investment from privatization. The company, in 1995 and 1996, acquired a 20 percent stake in the most notable Czech insurance company, Česká pojišťovna and began managing it. In the year 2000, PPF acquired a 31.5 percent stake of Česká pojišťovna from IPB.

Due to market conditions in 2019, Kellner’s PFF Group discarded its plans to list Home Credit, a finance company, in Hong Kong.
His other investments include commercial real estate holdings, PPF Bank, and a stake in the telecom firms the O2 Czech Republic.

Personal Life: Family, Demise

The founder and majority owner of the PPF group, Mr. Petr Kellner, died tragically on March 27, 2021.

His professional life was marked by his creativity and incredible work ethic, and he also maintained a commendable private life and relationship with his family. At the time of his death, Kellner lived with his wife and their four children outside Prague.
He was married to Renata Kellnerova until his passing. Previously, he was married to Iva Kellnerova.

Charity Work

In 2009, Mr. Kellner and his wife established the Kellner Family Foundation with the goal of rendering selfless services to the underprivileged in the society. Over the years, the couple provided a fortune to different charities. They helped create a school and provide countless opportunities to the disabled, impoverished, and extraordinarily gifted children, among others.
The focus of the Kellner Family Foundation was mainly on education-related activities to give Czech Republic a boost in schooling. The foundation has also made massive donations to further health-based and cultural causes.

Petr Kellner Net Worth: Salary, Income Sources, Assets,

The late Czech businessman was formerly considered to be the richest person in his country. He had a staggering net worth of $19 billion at the time of his tragic passing in March 2021. He was on a ski trip in Alaska when his helicopter crashed, killing him and four others.

Mr. Kellner has owned a Boeing 737-700BBJ which he purchased in 2010, and a luxurious Gulfstream G500 airplane. He owned an island resort in the British Virgin Islands as well. Through his company, Czech Republic’s wealthiest man donated millions of respirators and face masks and thousands of coronavirus swabs and testing kits to his country during the pandemic in 2019 according to reports by local media. He was a devoted philanthropist as well, and his efforts in the lives of many through the Kellner Family Foundation will not be forgotten in a hurry.