Page 4 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine December 2023

4 I Companies & Markets bne December 2023
Southeast Europe is seen as a key area for investments, given its expected strong growth, and its closeness to, and historical and cultural similarities with, PPF’s Central European base. / PPF
PPF hunts for opportunities in Balkans as it retreats west
Robert Anderson in Bucharest
PPF, the leading Czech private financial group, is refocusing on Southeast Europe as part of its shift out of Eurasia, according to Jan Ruzicka, its chief external affairs officer.
PPF is in the process of selling or scaling down its once sizeable consumer credit operations in Russia, China and Southeast Asia, and has been investing in the US and Europe as part of a drive to reduce risks and stabilise returns for its owners, the family of the late PPF founder, Petr Kellner.
“PPF is moving west [for] practical, strategic and even geopolitical reasons,” Ruzicka told bne IntelliNews in an interview at the Aspen-GMF Bucharest Forum last week.
Southeast Europe is now seen as a key area for investments, given its expected strong growth, and its closeness to,
and historical and cultural similarities with, PPF’s Central European base.
“For them we are the good Westerners. There is an amity that in a good way can be beneficial for business,” says Ruzicka. PPF had already begun its strategic shift under Kellner
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before he died in 2021 but this has now accelerated under his successor, Kellner’s former partner Jiri Smejc.
Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, PPF has virtually pulled out of Russia, leaving only a joint venture in real estate and a small life insurance business, which are both up for sale. “This is the strength of being a private family business,” says Ruzicka, “the owners can make quick decisions”.
In Asia, PPF’s Home Credit consumer credit business had
an early mover advantage but, lacking bank licences, it then struggled to compete against local banking rivals with access to cheap deposits. It disposed of its operations in Indonesia and the Philippines last year, and has been winding down its once sizeable operations in China, blaming over-regulation and growing nationalism. It is now believed to be close to selling its Vietnam business to Thailand’s KBank, and it is currently looking for a partner for its Indian business.
Child of globalisation
Ruzicka explains PPF’s strategic shift westwards in broad geopolitical terms: