Who is Thyssenkrupp investor Daniel Kretinsky?

Daniel Kretinsky joins Thyssenkrupp’s steel business. The Czech billionaire has been on a shopping spree in Europe for a long time – and with it comes more power and influence.

Daniel Kretinsky actually had reason to be happy: in the Forbes ranking he had become the second richest person in the Czech Republic. However, the 48-year-old did not get the chance to do business with his EPH holding company, but rather the Czech state – in the form of Industry Minister Josef Sikela.

During the negotiations over the sale of a gas pipeline, he suddenly became more important to the tabloid newspaper Blesk than the usual stars and starlets. “I confess that I neither read nor buy Blesk,” said the minister. “But friends wrote to me. And I found out that I’m currently on the cover more often than the model Agata Hanychova.”

Media control and opinion-making

Blesk, the “Blitz”, is the most widely read daily newspaper in the Czech Republic. It belongs to one of the largest media companies, which in turn is largely owned by Daniel Kretinsky. The press spokesman for Kretinskys Holding is also the press spokesman for the publishing house. And he rejects in writing any influence on the content or direction of the newspaper. Journalist Vaclav Dolejsi from the Internet portal Seznam Zpravy sees it differently: “Many media outlets here are owned by various billionaires, but I can’t remember any of them abusing their newspaper in such a way for their business,” criticizes Dolejsi.

The tabloid also read that energy prices would now skyrocket and the energy sector could collapse. Dolejsi’s ​​colleague Lucie Stuchlikova assesses it as follows: “This is confirmation of what we often talk about in the Czech Republic. That the oligarchs are buying the media like a kind of nuclear suitcase. Normally they wave it around, but here I would say that Kretinsky opened the suitcase and pressed the button.”

Rich through investments in the energy sector

The reason for the reporting was the sale of the pipeline operator Net4Gas, which Kretinsky had his eye on. The Czech gas pipeline runs from Slovakia to Germany. In Slovakia, his company already owns almost 50 percent of the transport rights, explains Radek Kubala from the non-governmental organization Re-Set. This is where Kretinsky’s great interest in buying comes from.

“His company is based on imports and on pipelines through which gas flows from Russia,” said Kubala. “Since the Russian aggression in Ukraine, there has been greater scrutiny of who benefits from such deals. Before the war, EPH was the largest single importer of Russian gas in Europe.” This income would have enabled Kretinsky to invest in Germany and other European countries.

Climate protection in the media’s sights

This is also what the research of a Czech-Slovak investigative team revealed. Ten years ago, the “coal and gas baron” Kretinsky and a business partner bought into the Czech media landscape. He took over one of the largest publishing houses from Ringier and Springer and founded the Czech News Center. It represents around a third of the media market in the Czech Republic, says Kubala.

“Attacks on the climate movement and the climate policy of Germany or the EU are particularly frequent in his online newspaper info.cz. The long-time editor-in-chief coined the term ‘Green Taliban’ for environmental activists,” explains Kubala. “Other media appear more serious, such as the business newspaper E15 . But their analyzes always result in the same thing. Kretinsky also owns the weekly magazine Reflex and there are often cartoons that make fun of climate protection.

This wasn’t noticed for a long time, says former Greenpeace employee Kubala. Kretinsky invests particularly abroad – and usually in small chunks. With a share of possibly 50 percent of Thyssenkrupp’s steel business, the bite in neighboring Germany could be quite big.