Business
One figure has actually pulled ahead of the remainder of the Czech Republic’s chasing rich pack. With a fortune of 470 billion crowns (over 19 billion euros), the 34-year-old owner and CEO of Czechoslovak Group (CSG), Michal Strnad, saw his wealth boost by 40 percent in a single year, according to the abundant list released by Euro.cz at the end of August.
Just the energy tycoon and worldwide financier Daniel Kretinsky seems maintaining, being available in 2nd with a fortune of 432 billion crowns. In 3rd location was PPF heiress Renata Kellnerova with 385 billion crowns.
It is, nevertheless, an extremely unpredictable numbers video game, with the majority of Strnad’s wealth bound in his 85 percent stake in CSG, Czechia’s leading arms maker. And it’s been a disorderly, roller-coaster year for the defence group, with CSG shares losing about 60 percent of their worth in between its record-breaking January IPO on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange and June, before recovering a few of its losses because.
CSG’s unstable stock is just one of numerous current obstacles experienced by the corporation this previous year, after dealing with claims of commercial home theft, suspicions of pumping up production capability figures, and increased analysis over its ties to leading political figures, specifically in Slovakia and Czechia– all of course rejected by CSG.
BIRN talked to a number of sources who’ve had negotiations with the group and its leading management, however choose to stay confidential in order to speak openly.
Michal Strnad (L), chairman of the board of directors and owner of CSG Group, searches at Czech Defence Minister Jana Cernochova (R) on the opening day of the global defense and security innovations reasonable IDET, in Brno, Czech Republic, 28 May 2025. EPA/MARTIN DIVISEKBusiness A significant European gamer
After going public at the start of 2026, CSG might boast of having actually managed the biggest defence IPO in history and ended up being the most important openly noted business in Central Europe, exceeding Czech state-controlled energy CEZ and Polish oil giant Orlen.
” CSG’s listing on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange represents a turning point not just for the business itself, however likewise for the Czech [defence] market as an entire,” market expert Jean-Paul van Oudheusden informed Seznam Zpravyechoing the industry-wide enjoyment that prepared for and followed the business’s 15 percent stock offering.
Vladimir Snidl, who has actually been covering CSG for years for the Slovak everyday Dennik N, informs BIRN that “it’s not a black-and-white story. ” He argues that while CSG” make money from really unjust kinds of public procurements”, the Prague-based group’s pro-Ukraine leanings along with its financial, commercial and financial added-value in the nations where it runs– specifically Czechia and Slovakia– paint a more intricate image of the arms maker.
Established in the 1990s by Jaroslav Strnad, Michal’s dad, under the name Excalibur Army, a little business trading in disposed of military devices, CSG has actually grown in scope, placing itself as an essential ammo provider to Ukraine and NATO allies, riding the waves of European rearmament, and capitalising on the installing sense of geopolitical doom.
“They have actually genuinely constructed something that is most likely unrivaled in the post-revolutionary history of the Czech Republic and Slovakia– a real arms empire that today competitors even the biggest European giants in the commercial sector, “highlights Snidl.
The group is now thought to be the world’s biggest manufacturer of small-calibre ammo and Europe’s 2nd leading manufacturer of medium- and large-calibre ammunition after Germany’s Rheinmetall.
It has about 40 production plants in 9 nations( Czechia, Slovakia, Germany, Serbia, Italy, Spain, the UK, India and the United States), utilizes 14,000 individuals, and saw its net revenue boost by over 35 percent in 2025, with initial 2026 outcomes continuing in the double digits.
” We see CSG, together with Rheinmetall, as the most vibrant development story in the whole defence sector “for the 2025-2030 duration, stated Patria Finance expert Michal Krikava.
Emblematic of this optimism, hardly a week passes without CSG revealing brand-new multi-million arms offers, weaponry joint-ventures and significant acquisitions– either from the corporation itself or its bulk owner: from obtaining a minority stake in historical Italian tire maker Pirelli and a joint endeavor in Slovakia with France’s EURENCO for the production of gunpowder, to cooperation with Ukrainian Armor for the advancement of innovative defence tech or the building of productions plants in Germany for nitrocellulose or nitro-glycerine.
The United States, too, has actually been a significant source of growth for the Prague-based corporation. This has actually specifically held true considering that the acquisition of Kinetic Group– whose possessions consist of crucial stars like Remington Ammunition and Federal– which had actually long been obstructed by the United States Senate however ultimately went through in 2024.” They’re extremely happy with their United States growth,” validates reporter Snidl.
In July, CSG developed a United States subsidiary in Michigan, with a workplace in Washington DC, and began building of a big factory in Iowa in direct cooperation with the United States Army. The group was likewise granted multi-million-dollar handle the FBI( whose existing director Kash Patel has supposedly worked as an expert for CSG in the past) and other United States police.
Czechoslovak Group( CSG) commemorates 30 years because its starting in Prague, Czech Republic, in October 2025. Source: CSG FacebookBusiness In the halls of power
“CSG is an example of a business whose development was supported by great relations with the authorities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia,” according to[
Some may argue this is something of an understatement.
The filling of high management posts with magnates from the worldwide defence market– consisting of hires from Rheinmetall, BAE Systems, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin or Airbus– has actually likewise approved the Czech group an effective network plugged deep into the Western intelligence and security neighborhood.
It has likewise revealed unerring capability to discover backers at the greatest levels of state throughout modifications of management, from Jaroslav Strnad’s hobnobbing within the circle Of previous president Milos Zeman to his boy Michal’s close ties with the Czech political.
Tense relations with previous defence minister Jana Cernochova, for example, were quickly smoothed over as orders came gathering. CSG was likewise to turn into one of the primary recipients of the Czech-led” ammunition for Ukraine “effort promoted by previous prime minister Petr Fiala and his nationwide security consultant Tomas Pojar– a previous specialist for CSG– to name a few leading authorities with links to CSG-owned business.
” The inadequate arrangement of details, together with the absence of openness relating to some procedures in the Czech Republic like the ammo effort, raises a variety of concerns about the official and casual impact of these people,” Marek Chromy from Transparency International Czech Republic firmly insisted
” Cernochova disliked Strnad, however in time she comprehended that she needed to stabilize Andrej Babis’s power network, and she signed up with forces with Strnad,” a confidential Defence Ministry source informed Seznam Zpravy
Strnad Jnr has actually had for years infamously bad relations with Babis, whose return as prime minister at the end of last year at first appeared to toss into doubt CSG’s ongoing influence with Czechia’s leading political facility. Experts declare that ties in between the 2 ended up being stretched 2 years back when Strnad lost his quote to obtain Pardubice-based chemical business Synthesia– a manufacturer of nitrocellulose– and the Mafra press group from Babis’s Agrofert corporation, which eventually offered the business to billionaire Karel Prazak rather.
” If somebody makes 30 billion [crowns] at the cost of Ukraine and the war, we do not like it,” Babis statedafter winning the basic election in October 2025, with his judgment ANO celebration promising to ditch the Czech-led ammo effort, assuring to examine previous defence offers, and threatening to enforce a windfall tax on regional arms producers.
This appears to have actually been more campaign-bark than policy-bite, with none of these risks materialising, while pragmatism and business-friendly mindsets appear to have actually dominated.
” CSG has great relations with the Czech Defence Ministry,” Snidl informs BIRN, a portfolio now in the hands of a candidate from the reactionary Freedom and Direct Democracy( SPD) celebration, whose chairman Tomio Okamura– likewise speaker of the lower home– stimulated anger within his own ranks for a July conference he accepted Michal Strnad in the parliament structure.
Within a fortnight, the Defence Ministry had actually currently revealed 2 big weaponry orders– consisting of one in cooperation with its Slovak equivalent to buy Tatra trucks– set to straight benefit CSG-affiliated business.
“We do not talk about speculation concerning individual or political relationships, “CSG representative Andrej Cirtek reacted to BIRN’s queries.” CSG preserves basic expert relations with federal governments, political agents and public authorities in all nations where it runs, consisting of the Czech Republic.”
The Czech federal government’s choice to keep the ammo streaming to Ukraine likewise took advantage of a little push from CSG’s good friends in the United States– which even appears to have actually taken Babis by surprise– where Strnad has actually invested substantial political and funds over the previous years.
” If Michal Strnad wishes to, he will get to Mar-a-Lago before Babis,” a source acquainted with the group’s financial investments in the United States informed Reporter.cz describing Donald Trump’s Florida club and resort.
( L-R) Slovak Defence Minister Robert Kalinak, Czech Defence Minister Jaromir Zuna, Hungarian Defence Minister Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi, and Polish Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz go to a presser after the V4 Defence Ministers conference at the Stefania Palace in Budapest, Hungary, 25 June 2026. EPA/BOGLARKA BODNARBusiness Smoking cigarettes weapons
The degree of CSG’s political connections has actually raised eyebrows and sustained suspicions in some quarters about the group’s service practices.
In Slovakia, where the group has actually been broadening because 2013, a number of offers in between CSG and the Slovak Defence Ministry revealed in late 2025 were simple structure contracts instead of real orders, and concernedby some as a tactic to synthetically buzz up the group’s potential customers before its IPO the following month.
Investigative reporters likewise revealed[
And simply recently, Kalinak confessed that his business Kallan Consulting had actually done lobbying work for a CSG subsidiary in the UAE however rejected any dispute of interest, declaring the cooperation and monetary payments stopped when he ended up being defence minister in late 2023.
“We see no basis for linking this industrial job in the UAE with agreements consequently concluded in between CSG business and the Slovak Ministry of Defence,” dismisses CSG representative Cirtek.
Snidl disagrees, firmly insisting that “it’s an amazing dispute of interest, and we still do not understand the entire story “, including that while it is, to some level, a subject of analysis in Slovakia,” it would have been a much larger scandal 10 years earlier.”
Additional debates have actually emerged over the previous numerous months, putting a damage in CSG’s success story narrative.
Simply days before the IPO introduced, veteran minority investor Petr Kratochvil started working out his right to offer his stake in essential parts of business– a procedure CSG did not discuss in its prospectus for financiers ahead of the IPO, before then” undetectably”including it to its yearly report in white text over a white background.
Strnad has actually likewise been secured a long-running disagreement with a minority investor in Tatra Trucks, which becomes part of CSG. Denisa Materova declares the management of the historical Koprivnice-based producer just acts in favour of its bulk investor amidst issues that Strnad is looking for to take complete control of the business.
From a preliminary track record as something of a”shy beneficiary”to his daddy,”Michal Strnad is stated to be much more predatory than his daddy,”states Snidl– a credibility sources knowledgeable about the business’s negotiations have actually likewise highlighted to BIRN.
[Strnad] has actually ended up being such an omnivore, he just feasts on whatever he sees,”Seznam Zpravy reporter Janek Kroupa evaluated just recently.
This hunger, sources informed BIRN on condition of privacy, has actually led the Czech arms maker to present what they have actually referred to as uncommonly aggressive company practices to broaden its reach and combine its supremacy.
The most telling case possibly relates to Czech airplane engine maker PBS which, after turning down a deal by Strnad to be purchased outright, has actually because implicated previous staff members of dripping delicate and tactical details to CSG about their technical knowledge and commercial procedures.
“We appreciate the right of any business to safeguard its copyright,” states CSG representative Cirtek. “At the very same time, this matter must be seen in the wider context of a competitive disagreement in between 2 business running in the very same technological sector.”
In October 2025, the group established a brand-new subsidiary AviaNera focused on the production of drones and unmanned aerial automobiles to be headed up by PBS’s previous CEO, Pavel Cechal.
Indicating the current departure of “a handful of our previous service technicians and supervisors … under non-standard situations”, the present PBS president, Petr Kadner, has actually questioned CSG’s capability to produce in such a brief time “such advanced innovation as airplane engines without previous experience”.
CSG, on the other hand, has actually declined the allegations of copyright theft. “AviaNera establishes its own technical options and has access to its own knowledge and propulsion system creates through its R&D, financial investments, collaborations and acquisitions,” consisting of through its acquisition of Serbian business MUST Solutions in 2025, according to CSG spokesperson Cirtek.
Business Shooting blanks
Financiers’high hopes about CSG’s future earnings were momentarily moistened by the release in May of a bombshell report by the financial investment and investigative company Hunterbrook questioning the Czech business’s ammo production capabilities, sustaining doubts on whether specified figures were being pumped up.
CSG insists its yearly production capability might increase to 1.1 million rounds by the end of 2027, the group is eager to highlight it is diversifying beyond the production of weapons shells– an overreliance that specialists have actually long determined as a weak point for the business, consisting of because of a prospective ceasefire in Ukraine.
“If the dispute in Ukraine relaxes, it is an issue for CSG,” Tomas Cverna, an expert at the brokerage company XTB, informed Seznam Zpravy.
“Of course, the sales of ammo– which presently produce some 60 percent of profits– might ultimately tape some drop,” Krzysztof Debiec, an expert at the Centre for Eastern Studies informs BIRN.
“CSG, which concentrates on reasonably unsophisticated military production, if it wishes to develop its position, should buy a more ingenious military production, and it appears the business’s managers know that,” he states.
From land systems and aerospace systems to unmanned tech, CSG’s current purchasing spree throughout Europe and North America (for the a lot of part) has actually placed the Prague-based group throughout a range of defence sectors.
“We are seeing a renaissance in the defence sector,” examined J&T Banka expert Pavel Ryska. “One function of this is the renewal of the ground forces and the fortifying of air defence, which plays into the hands of Central European arms producers [like CSG] concentrated on these sections.”
Michal Strnad’s fortune is, both on paper and in optics, totally connected to CSG’s success at the heart of Europe’s rearmament drive. Weakening that is another abundant list ranking, released simply 2 weeks after Euro.cz’s and based upon a somewhat various method, which documented 120 billion crowns (about one-quarter) of his approximated wealth.
Business like CSG stay at the grace of quickly moving geopolitical currents, federal governments as friendly today as they might show unpredictable tomorrow, and extreme public examination over how they got to where they are today.
Discover more from PMN S.P.O.R.T.S - A PRIME MEDIA NETWORK BRAND
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
