Petr Kellner 10 Personal Facts, Biography, Wiki
Czech entrepreneur Children: Anna Kellnerová Trending Born: May 20, 1964, Ceska Lipa, Czechia Died: March 27, 2021, Knik Glacier, Alaska, United States Spouse: Renáta Kellnerová (m. ?–2021) Parents: Josef Kellner Organizations founded: PPF Group, The Kellner Family Foundation Kellner J was born in 1964 in Česká Lípa, then in Czechoslovakia, but spent most of his childhood in Liberec. Kellner graduated from the University of Economics, Prague Faculty of Industrial Economics, in 1986. Kellner died on 27 March 2021 in an Airbus AS350 B3 helicopter crash, while heliskiing in Alaska’s backcountry near Knik Glacier, 50 miles (80 km) east of Anchorage, along with four other people. The helicopter crashed into a mountain between Metal Creek and Grasshopper Valley at about 5,500 feet (1,700 m), 10 or 15 feet (3 or 4 m) from the top of the ridge, and rolled some 800 or 900 feet (240 or 270 m) downhill. The missing helicopter was reported to the authorities two hours after the tracking signal stopped.
Petr Kellner 10 Pics, Photos, Pictures
Petr Kellner 10 Fast Facts, Biography, Wiki
He scrabbled in the vacuum of Czechoslovakia’s postcommunist, early 1990s with photocopiers and office supplies. He rose to the moneyed heights of the Czech business world, becoming the country’s wealthiest businessman, a media magnate, publicity-shy philanthropist, and government whisperer. Petr Kellner, who died over the weekend in a helicopter crash on a ski trip in Alaska, was both admired and feared, as his company PPF Group morphed into a financial behemoth with holdings ranging from insurance to real estate to telecommunications, from Central Europe to China and beyond. Bloomberg put his wealth at $15.7 billion, Forbes at $17.5 billion. U.S. authorities say, for the moment, that there is nothing to suggest anything other than an accident — possibly human error, possibly mechanical problems. Federal aviation officials and state police are still investigating. Four other people including the pilot also died in the incident. Kellner’s death reverberated in the Czech Republic, where the reports led newscasts and the top of newspaper websites all day on March 29, and throughout much of Central Europe. Trained in economics, Kellner, 56, cut his capitalist teeth after the 1989 Velvet Revolution that brought an end to communism in the country. His official biography says that, for several years, he worked as an office supply salesman, including in the import and servicing of photocopiers. He also garnered sufficient financial capital, and business connections, to start an investment fund to invest in the state assets being privatized by the postcommunist government through a “voucher-for-shares” scheme. The Prvni Privatizacni Fond (PPF) became his main investment vehicle, buying stock and shares in more than 200 enterprises, and later acquiring a 20 percent stake in the country’s largest insurer, Ceska Pojistovna. Kellner was well known for shunning publicity and gave few media interviews over the years. He and his family had a well-known philanthropic foundation that donated millions for Czech educational causes.
