They call it the "Czech Sphinx" and, due to its rapid, aggressive and secret incursions, we had defined it as the iron-fisted business man in a velvet glove. It's about the Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky (over 5 billion euros his personal assets for the part that is known, 8,5 billion euros the value attributed to him by Forbes), owner of half European retail (Metro, Mediamarket, Saturn, Fnac-Darty, Sunsbury's, Eroski) , of coal mines in France, Germany and Poland and Czechia (he is called the "emperor of coal"), of football clubs, of postal and logistics companies, one of the first European publishers (he also owns a significant share of Le Monde) and, finally, owner of Eustream (Russia-Ukraine gas pipeline on standby for the war).
All this happened, in a few years and in the silence of the European and world press, with the favor of the reactionary political circles of Eastern and Western Europe. His strategy is to always be ready to pounce on companies in crisis and in undervalued sectors with extremely attractive offers that almost always put competitors out of business. And now he has plummeted like a hawk into two mega-deals: seizing the heavily indebted French supermarket group with a 1,1 billion euro investment, Casino (the seventh largest grocery chain in the country, in which Kretinsky already owns a 10%) by challenging the current controlling shareholder Jean-Charles Naouri; and also become the owner of the French media giant Published of Vivendi, for which he has already signed the first stage of the sale. Indeed, last month, Vincent Bolloré, the group's majority shareholder, decided to sell this subsidiary to take over the French rival group Hatchetmore competitive internationally. In this way the freedom of the French press, including important TV stations, will be almost entirely in Kretinsky's hands.
Kretinsky wants to invest in Casino: what will happen?
The negotiations should close on May 19 but it is not said that – as the financial plot of the Casino crisis which has 6,4 billion in debt is extremely complicated – it will not be postponed. First of all, according to the experts, it seems unlikely that Naouri will agree to lose control over Casino, since in order to avoid disaster, he has been preparing for some time and with allies the merger of Casino with the teract group, which is also a major casino franchise. “We are focused on our project,” he retorted Thierry Blandinières, general manager of the group of the agro-industrial giant InVivo, majority shareholder of Teract. The aim is to create two separate companies, one for distribution and the other for supply, in order to establish a "French leader in responsible and sustainable distribution". That's not all because a third pretender-ally has recently been added, the Group The Musketeers, which runs Intermarché, the third largest supermarket chain in France, which recently said it would invest in the new group.
Complicating Naouri's attempt to save Casino, Kretinsky's offer, if accepted by the partners, would combine with that of a longtime Naouri ally, the wealthy investor Marc Ladreit de Lacharriere, whose Fimalac group is the third largest shareholder in Casino. The resulting financial injection could save Casino, however putting Naouri's stake in the minority, currently the majority and which Naouri firmly intends to keep. Without him having, however, sure certainties of being able to do it.
Closed the nuclear power, here is Kretinsky coal
While waiting for the great and complex game of saving Casino to take place, Kretinsky has seen another gigantic game reopen in his favor, that of the fossil energies. Owner of lignite and coal mines (the most toxic and polluting thing) that should have been decommissioned, sworn enemy of the greens and of many European parties and governments that have embarked on the path of ecological transitionrecently received an unexpected gift from the parties that are fighting him when they decided on Germany's definitive farewell to thenuclear energy. No nuclear power plants? This will create a gigantic energy vacuum which will inevitably also lead to the reopening and reuse of the most toxic fuels, coming from coal mines. In 2009, when he became president of EPH, a thermal energy production and distribution company, Kretinsky buys several coal-fired power plants in Europe, convinced he has a future. In 2019 Kretinsky completes the purchase of the French assets of the German energy company Uniper, and buys two coal-fired plants in France, as well as two solar farms and six wind farms. Because the Czech Sphinx has always followed a strategy based on tactics aimed at working in different sectors: in 2021, its holding EPH generated almost 19 billion in energy revenue, of which 2 billion for the French market alone. And at the same time it has progressively increased its minority and/or majority stakes in European publishing, logistics and retail.
