'Czech sphinx' Daniel Kretinsky speaks out over 150m Royal Mail stake

[Janet Brum]

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Energy tycoon Daniel Kretinsky praised the "tradition, history, and importance" of the public service provided by the postal company




Daniel Kretinsky, the billionaire investor known as the “Czech sphinx”, has broken his silence after taking a £150m stake in Royal Mail, in a move that will stoke speculation he may tighten his grip on Britain’s troubled post monopoly.

In a rare public statement to The Telegraph, Mr Kretinsky said he would “not exclude the possibility of either strengthening our presence or reducing current shareholder ­position”. The energy tycoon also praised Royal Mail’s “tradition, history and ­importance of the public service it ­provides”.

Who is Daniel Kretinsky, the ‘Czech sphinx’?

Daniel Kretinsky is a Czech businessman and lawyer who has been dubbed the “Czech sphinx” by a Polish magazine for his inscrutability.

He runs and owns Energeticky a prumyslovy holding (EPH), the biggest energy group in Central Europe.

Kretinsky, whose net worth is estimated to be around $3.4bn (£2.8bn), also owns stakes in French newspaper Le Monde and German retail giant Metro AG.

In May 2020, Kretinsky bought a 5pc stake in Royal Mail and a 5pc stake in struggling US department store chain Macy's.

The appearance of his fund, Vesa ­Equity Investment, on the Royal Mail share register last month sparked ­speculation over his plans. Little more than a fortnight later, Rico Back, the Royal Mail chief executive, stepped down, with the FTSE 250 company plunged into crisis as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.


Let­ter vol­umes col­lapsed and costs spi­ralled, as union lead­ers took an in­creas­ingly en­trenched po­si­tion over plans to au­to­mate op­er­a­tions.

Com­pany in­sid­ers and City an­a­lysts said there was no con­nec­tion be­tween the two events, how­ever. Mr Back’s de­par­ture co­in­cided with Keith Wil­liams, the ex­ec­u­tive chair­man, sig­nalling change. Do­mes­tic and over­seas op­er­a­tions, while over­seen by the board, could be run separately.

Stock­bro­kers be­lieve the over­seas arm GLS, seen as the “jewel in the crown” of Royal Mail’s busi­ness, is likely to most in­ter­est Mr Kretinsky. He said: “Sim­i­lar to all other in­vest­ments un­der­taken via Vesa Eq­uity In­vest­ment, it also ap­plies for Royal Mail that we join com­pa­nies of whose fun­da­men­tal value we are con­vinced based on de­tailed fun­da­men­tal anal­y­sis.

“In the case of Royal Mail, we par­tic­u­larly ap­pre­ci­ate the com­pany’s tra­di­tion, his­tory and im­por­tance of the pub­lic ser­vice it pro­vides.

“We do not ex­clude the pos­si­bil­ity of ei­ther strength­en­ing our pres­ence or re­duc­ing cur­rent share­holder po­si­tion es­pe­cially ac­cord­ing to de­vel­op­ment of the mar­ket, the re­spec­tive com­pany it­self, as well as the rest of our port­fo­lio.”

Shane O’ri­or­dain, Royal Mail’s cor­po­rate af­fairs chief, said: “On­go­ing share­holder en­gage­ment is al­ways a key pri­or­ity for us. We are fo­cused on de­liv­er­ing our strat­egy at pace on be­half of our stake­hold­ers.”