Andrej Babiš, Czech prime minister (source: Sme)
Czech Finance Minister and owner of the Agrofert group, Andrej Babiš, is again the richest man of Slovak origin, according to the annual list compiled by the regional Forbes magazine.
Compared to 2015, Babiš whose conglomerate Agrofert now includes approximately 250 companies, expanded his fortune from €220 million to almost €2.6 billion mainly due to the notable outcomes of his companies in the food and chemical industries, the Sme daily reported.
Close on his heels and currently the richest resident of Slovakia, Ivan Chrenko from the real estate developer HB Reavis, increased the value of his assets from €730 million to €1.02 billion. HB Reavis has built inter alia, the Aupark shopping centre, the Apollo business centre and the Twin City project in Bratislava.
The third person on the list, co-founder of the Penta financial group Jaroslav Haščák, earned year-on-year approximately €100 million and gained a fortune of €630 million. Forbes pointed out that he received returns in particular from the health insurer Dôvera and the Dr. Max chain of pharmacies. Milan Fiľo, the owner of the Eco-Invest company which operates in the paper and food industries, occupies fourth position in the ranking with assets of around €600 million. He increased his fortune by €90 million in comparison to 2015, Sme wrote.
While fifth and sixth position belong to the co-owners of the Moravia Steel group Tomáš Chrenek and Miroslav Trnka and co-founder of the Eset anti-virus software company, both with assets of €590 million, seventh and eight position (€570 million) went to the other co-founders of Eset Rudolf Hrubý and Peter Paško, who also owns the Nedbalka Gallery in Bratislava.
At number nine in the list of most wealthy Slovaks are Jozef and Patrik Tkáč of the J&T Finance Group who together own €520 million which is about €80 million more than in 2015. While in the 1980s Jozef Tkáč acted for the state Štátna Banka Československá banking house, he is now J&T’s Chairman of the Board of Directors. His son Patrik, with his friend Ivan Jakabovič launched the J&T group, which now has in its portfolio, among other investments, energy, tourism, machine engineering and media.
Jakabovič is the tenth richest person in Slovakia with assets of €500 million, which is about €75 more than in 2015. In addition to J&T, he also has a 9-percent share in the Cypriot company Biques Limited which plans to leave the shareholder structure of the Czech company Energetický a Průmyslový Holding, Sme reported.
Forbes estimates the total fortune of the 25 richest Slovaks at €11.7 billion, or 15 percent of the performance of the Slovak economy in 2015. If the fortune was divided amongst all Slovak residents, they would each receive almost €2,200.
Companies, which bring wealth to their owners, mostly performed well above-standard thanks especially to good growth in both the Slovak and Czech Economies where most of them operate, wrote Forbes, as quoted by Sme.
Disclaimer: Penta financial group has a 45-percent share in Petit Press, the co-owner of The Slovak Spectator.
