A tragedy occurred last Saturday at Alaska, near the Knick Glacier. Petr Kellner, the richest man in the Czech Republic, was one of five people killed in a helicopter crash.
Only one man survived crush and his condition is serious, as announced on Sunday.
Kellner founded the PPF business group, which confirmed his death at the age of 56.
He was also one of the richest people in Europe, according to Forbes and Bloomberg. Forbes estimates his fortune at $ 17.5 billion, while Bloomberg at $ 15.7 billion.
As Business Insider writes, Kellner was a self-made billionaire who started selling office supplies, before starting an investment fund.
The helicopter had started from the luxurious Tordrillo Mountain Lodge for a “heli-skiing” excursion. In these helicopters pick up passengers and transport them to remote mountains for skiing.
A spokesman for the luxury accommodation said the helicopter was carrying three customers, two ski instructors and a pilot.
Authorities were notified Saturday night that the helicopter had not returned and a location was given where the helicopter may have crashed. The rescue team found only one survivor, whose health condition is serious. Five other people, Kellner, Gregory Harms from Colorado, Benjamin Larose from Czech republic, Sean McManami and Zachary Russell from Alaska – the latter was the pilot – were all dead.
“In our 17 years of operation, this is the first time we have encountered such an event,” the property told The Anchorage Daily News.
The property is located on Lake Jude and costs $ 15,000 per person for a one-week stay, which includes heli-skiing excursions.
The fatal helicopter was an Airbus AS 350-B3. A spokesman for the shelter told the New York Times he did not know what caused the crash. The investigation into the case is ongoing.
In the 1990s, Peter Kellner founded PPF as an investment company with partners to participate in the country’s program to privatize hundreds of state-owned companies.
PPF has been extended to insurance, finance, telecommunications, construction, media and biotechnology. Its operations extend mainly to Europe, Asia and the United States.
The companies of the PPF group
The assets of the PPF group amounted to 44 billion euros in mid-2020, according to Reuters, which lists the companies of the group:
Home Credit: Active in nine markets in Eastern Europe and Asia, one of the largest financial groups in China, since 2007. Russia is one of the bank’s major markets.
It announced losses of 584 million euros in 2020 due to the pandemic, after a net profit of 400 million euros in 2019.
Air Bank: It has 861,000 customers and is the focus of a PPF bid to take control of the largest MONETA Money Bank. PPF announced this month that it had increased its stake in MONETA to 28.36% following a voluntary offering of shares.
O2 Czech Republic: Czech telecommunications group with nearly 6 million mobile customers, with net profits of $ 262.3 million in 2020.
Telenor CEE: Mobile operator Telenor has over 10 million customers in Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro, with EBITDA profits of € 466 million in 2020.
CETIN: The largest data and communication network in the Czech Republic, which split from O2 Czech Republic in 2015. It has over 45,000 km of fiber optic cables.
The PPF group said last February that it was considering a Group Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Central European Media Enterprises: A Prague-based broadcasting group in Central and Eastern Europe. Kellner completed its acquisition in 2020 with a $ 2.1 billion deal.
Skoda Transportation: PPF is the main shareholder with an 87.8% share of the Czech state-owned transport company.
Czech Toll: The company won a tender for 2018 in cooperation with the Slovak group SkyToll for the operation of the toll system in the Czech Republic.
sotio: Biotechnology company specializing in cancer and autoimmune therapies.
Real estate: The group has assets worth 2.4 billion euros in a number of markets.
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