Is former Czech President Vaclav Klaus the real owner of the largest Czech investment and financial group, PPF? No, that's not true: The holding was founded by the late Czech billionaire Petr Kellner in the early nineties and is now owned and run by his family. In the past, the group supported the Vaclav Klaus Institute, a think tank established by the Czech former president after he left office; however, there is no evidence to suggest that Vaclav Klaus is the actual owner of PPF.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) published on TikTok on June 16, 2025. It shows a post in Czech, translated by Lead Stories as:
Hana Lena Jacobson: I confirm that Vaclav Klaus is the real owner of PPF Group in the Netherlands, he is worth an estimated $10.5 billion. Petr Kellner, born on May 20, 1964, was only 27 in 1991 and acted as a 'straw man', to whom people linked to V. Klaus offered a luxury life, in exchange for silence.
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Jun 18 09:16:04 2025 UTC)
There is no evidence in openly available sources to suggest that the allegation about Vaclav Klaus being the real owner of the PPF Group is correct. A Google search carried out on June 19, 2025, for the phrase in Czech "Je Vaclav Klaus je majitelem PPF?", translated by Lead Stories staff as "Is Vaclav Klaus the real owner of PPF?" did not bring any relevant results (archived here). Also, PPF annual reports and other official documents do not list Vaclav Klaus as a company shareholder.
The company does not comment on such speculations, PPF spokesman Leos Rousek told Lead Stories by phone on June 24, 2025.
The PPF Group (archived here) is an international investment company established in the then-Czechoslovakia by Petr Kellner in 1991, shortly after the fall of communism. Kellner was the founder and majority shareholder of PPF until 2021, when he died (archived here) in a helicopter crash in Alaska.
At the time of the incident, Kellner was the richest Czech businessman, according to Forbes' ranking (archived here). After his death, the Kellner family acquired (archived here) the shares of PPF Group that were previously held by two other shareholders, Ladislav Bartonicek (0.535%) and Jean-Pascal Duvieusart (0.535%), to acquire 100% ownership of PPF Group.
As of 2024, PPF Group N.V. (archived here), registered in the Netherlands, has been controlled by Amalar Holding (archived here), which was established by the late Petr Kellner's wife, Renata Kellnerova (archived here), and her daughters, according to the PPF website. Amalar Holding holds a controlling 78.74% stake in PPF Group; the remaining shares are still held by Renata Kellnerova and the Kellner descendants, according to the website (archived here).
Vaclav Klaus (archived here) is a former Czech president who served two terms, from 2003 to 2013. After completing his final mandate in 2013, Klaus moved to the then newly formed Vaclav Klaus Institute (archived here), a think tank that had been financially sponsored (archived here) by Petr Kellner from the start. PPF later stopped sponsoring the institute, and another Czech billionaire, Pavel Tykac (archived here), announced on his website in October 2024 that he would finance the think tank (archived here).
