Does Hungarian-American billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros own Seznam.cz, the largest Czech search engine? No, that's not true: A company press release from 2016 and publicly accessible company filings confirm that the search engine's shareholders are its founder, Ivo Lukacevic, and Seznam.cz itself.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on TikTok on December 13, 2023. The text (translated from Czech to English by Lead Stories staff) read:
So is it registering??Seznam.cz, Novinky, and Stream.cz were bought by American company Tiger Holding Four, which is owned by Soros, for 1.7 billion Czech koruna.Do you finally understand who is feeding us information on who, when, with whom, and for how much?????And that's why [there is] so much false propaganda against Russia.
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Mar 4 12:18:06 2024 UTC)
Tiger Holding Four and Miura International investment funds did hold a minority stake in the largest Czech search engine between 2007 and 2016, and social media critics have accused the search engine and related news websites of displaying pro-Ukrainian inclinations (archived here).
Nevertheless, according to a press release dated January 7, 2016 (archived here), Seznam.cz bought back their 30 percent stake, with the transaction taking effect on January 6, 2016. Consequently, the search engine's sole shareholders are now its founder, Ivo Lukacevic, who holds a 70 percent stake through a Cyprus-registered firm called Helifreak Limited, and Seznam.cz retains the remaining 30 percent, as stated in the press release.
The information in the press release is corroborated by the company's public filings, such as its 2016 annual report (archived here) and a notarial deed dated June 16, 2022 (archived here). The transaction mentioned in the press release is also detailed in the appendix of the 2016 financial statement, which is available in Czech, and can be found on page 7, as illustrated in the screenshot below:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Mar 8 07:30:26 2024 UTC)
Below is a screenshot depicting a shareholder overview found on the same page of the financial statement appendix:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Mar 8 07:30:51 2024 UTC)
The appendix of the notarial deed dated June 16, 2022, affirms Lukacevic's ownership of Helifreak Limited as seen in the screenshot of the document:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Mar 8 08:25:35 2024 UTC)
The documents are readily accessible through the Czech Republic's trade register on justice.cz, which is an official judiciary website.
