Czech billionaire Petr Kellner was killed in a helicopter crash last month, leaving behind a complicated legacy in China. Credit: Genesys
When Petr Kellner, the billionaire chief of the international conglomerate PPF Group, died last month in a helicopter crash near Anchorage, Alaska, he left behind a complicated legacy about his relationship with China.
The 56-year-old businessman was the wealthiest person in his native Czech Republic in large part because, for the past decade, he had been one of the most successful foreign businessmen in China. While PPF Group owns everything from banks and newspapers to insurance and telecommunications companies, much of Kellner’s $17.5 billion fortuneAccording to Forbes was tied to a PPF subsidiary called Home Credit, a huge consumer credit business whose operations in China, analysts say, managed to grow by traversing the complex terrain between business and politics.
“PPF learned how to navigate these muddy waters of post-communist reform, when the economy starts opening up but there are a lot of strings attached,” says Ivana Karásková, a research fellow at the
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