The Czech billionaire who has a 13.1 per cent stake in Royal Mail has topped up his holding in J Sainsbury, lifting his investment to 9.99 per cent and making him the second largest shareholder in the supermarket chain.
Daniel Kretinsky, 45, and his business partner Patrik Tkac, 47, from Slovakia, made the investment through their Vesa Equity Investment vehicle.
According to the company’s representatives, the strengthening of ownership in Sainbury’s is part of Vesa Equity’s long-term plan to acquire minority stakes in companies that focus on the sale of food. Sainsbury’s, with a 16 per cent market share, is the UK’s second largest grocer.
Vesa Equity first invested in Sainsbury’s in September last year. It is now the grocer’s second largest shareholder after Qatar Holdings.
Kretinsky, who has also invested in Metro in Germany and Casino in France, is understood to be supportive of the supermarket chain’s management team. Sainsbury’s shares closed down 2¼p, or 0.9 per cent, at 242¾p, having spiked higher initially after the investment announcement in mid-afternoon.
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The Czech businessman first came to investors’ attention in March last year, when Vesa Equity bought a 3.1 per cent stake in Royal Mail. The company has topped up its holdings on ten occasions since then to become the FTSE 250 company’s largest shareholder.
The son of a professor and a judge, Kretinsky started his career in 1999 as a lawyer at J&T, a bank founded by Tkac. Ten years later, when J&T spun off its energy assets, he became a shareholder in the newly formed EPH.
J&T, along with PPF Group, the investment company run by Petr Kellner, who was the Czech Republic’s richest man, held on to the lion’s share of EPH but Kretinsky eventually bought out his partners and is now the 94 per cent majority owner. Kellner, 56, died in a helicopter crash in Alaska last month. His net worth was estimated at $17.5 billion by Forbes.
