Petr Kellner as a liability

In our daily review of the Czech press, we first mentioned Petr Kellner on Aug. 23, 1996. As a company, PPF had been mentioned many times by then, but Kellner didn't give his first media interview until Sept. 1996, when he told Právo that PPF managed Kč 10bn in assets. By the next year, Týden magazine was ranking him as the fourth-richest Czech, behind Viktor Kožený, Antonín Charouz and Lubomír Hrstka. By Nov. 2000, LN had Kellner as the richest Czech, ahead of Pavel Tykač, Viktor Koláček and Karel Schwarzenberg. In other words, the 1990s made Petr Kellner. So why did Václav Klaus go out of his way in Právo on Sat. to declare that Kellner was not a significant figure of the 1990s? Perhaps because if Kellner were still alive, he would be a huge asset for Klaus in terms of finances, connections and the media, if he decided to run again for election. A deceased Kellner, though, is a liability who serves as a significant reminder of how things worked during the early Klaus years.

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