One of those whose star began to rise in the mid-1990s is Karel Komárek. His KKCG group, which after three decades is a strong player in the energy, finance and real estate business, started out during the privatisation transformation of the 1990s.
Komárek presents the beginning of his business as the founding of M.O.S. Hodonín; his father allegedly loaned him money to get started. However, Komárek entered the first league of business with the controversial privatisation of the Moravian Oil Mines. At that time, the state allowed the privatisation of the company under unfavourable and unclear conditions, from which the assets were gradually removed.
The Komárek family gradually downsized the oil mines and took everything that was viable out to new enterprises they owned. The long-term process of asset stripping operated through a network of shell companies – for example, the subsidiary MND Production became independent through its new owner, the Cypriot Corbino Holdings. Similarly, MND Gas Storage, which manages gas storage tanks, has been taken over by the Cypriot MND Enterprises.
The family of a Czech billionaire is behind the boxes, and offshore was used to anonymise ownership and “tax optimisation”. On the basis of the profits from the lucrative privatisation, the KKCG group was created, which made its profits mainly from deals with Russian gas suppliers. In later periods, new sectors and large companies such as Allwyn, ARICOMA Group, KKCG Real Estate, the Greek lottery OPAP and Springtide Ventures were added to the group’s portfolio.
