Background and career
Petr Kellner (20 May 1964 – 27 March 2021) was a Czech entrepreneur, the founder and majority shareholder (98.93%) of the PPF Group. At the time of his death, he had an estimated net worth of $17.5 billion, making him the wealthiest person in the Czech Republic.
Kellner 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.
In the late 1980s, he worked as a production assistant in Barrandov Studios, even having a cameo in the 1989 film Time of the Servants. After the Velvet Revolution he worked for the Czech company Impromat, an importer and seller of Ricoh photocopiers. While working for that company, he met Milan Maděryč and Milan Vinkler.
In 1991, after the announcement of Czechoslovak voucher privatization, he founded the investment fund PPF (První Privatizační Fond: First Privatization Fund) with Milan Vinkler and state-owned glassworks Sklo Union. In 1992, PPF investiční společnost a.s. was established and the funds' names were changed from privatization to investment. The funds were very successful and purchased stock of more than 200 corporations with nominal value 5 billion CZK.
In 1995 and 1996, PPF bought a 20% stake in the largest Czech insurance company, Česká pojišťovna and started to manage it. In 2000, PPF bought 31.5% stake of Česká pojišťovna from IPB for 2.85 billion CZK (around $72.27 million at the time). The transaction with IPB ended up with IPB paying to PPF 1.6 billion CZK (around $40.93 million at the time) penalty, making the real purchasing cost of the stake 1.25 billion CZK (around $31.98 million at the time). Later PPF acquired more shares and became the dominant (93%) owner in 2001, when PPF bought large stakes of shares from Komerční banka and the Czech state. With help of these profitable transactions, the last investors from voucher privatization were bought out and Kellner became the dominant owner of PPF Group.
In 2007, PPF Group signed a contract with Assicurazioni Generali to create a joint venture between PPF Group's insurance arm and Assicurazioni Generali's corporations in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. According to sources PPF Group will own 49% of that company from the start, and Generali will pay €1.1 billion (around $1.29 billion at the time) to the PPF Group for its stake. From 2007 till 2013 Kellner was member of the board of directors of Generali. Kellner himself later bought 2.02% stake in Assicurazioni Generali. In 2013 Kellner's PPF sold their remaining shares in the Generali PPF Holding (GPH) to Generali for €2.5 billion (around $3.32 billion at the time), who became sole owner effective in early 2015.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
