The world is investing in war. Strnad's CSG earned 400 billion in a single day.
The armaments conglomerate of Michal Strnad entered the stock exchange in Amsterdam and its value skyrocketed. Something unprecedented has happened, ČEZ is no longer the most valuable domestic company. The change at the top of the peloton is all the more interesting because ČEZ is a semi-state behemoth that enjoys a state-guaranteed monopoly position. Strnad's CSG is purely a private enterprise. Its growth is due to a fundamental geopolitical shift that we are currently witnessing.
Michal Strnad is just over thirty years old. Virtually overnight, he has become the new Petr Kellner, by far the richest Czech billionaire. His daring entry into the Amsterdam stock market sparked rocketing interest from investors, and the youngest Czech billionaire, who took over his father's company (no, he did not build it from scratch), has grossed over 400 billion crowns in a day.
"We will stick to what we are already doing," Strnad says about the plans after CSG's stock market entry. The IPO made him the third richest man in the world under 40,"
Commentator Martin Ehl has summed up the key circumstances of the whole event directly from Amsterdam.
Strnad's 400 billion from the stock exchange for ammunition initiative.
IPO is an acronym for Initial Public Offering. Companies transform into publicly traded companies by entering the stock exchange, and their shares can thus be purchased by anyone. In case it's an attractive business, investors try to purchase securities as quickly as possible at the stock exchange entry in anticipation of a rapid price growth. This was no different in the case of CSG.
The company can then use the investors' money for further investments. That's the goal of CSG. The rise of the company has also an interesting political background. Jaroslav Strnad started it thanks to orders from the hand during the ANO government at the Ministry of Defense, but he had to back down from the company's leadership. Due to contacts in the post-Soviet space, he had problems with the examination, which is important for obtaining military orders.
His son then took up the ammunition initiative politically coordinated by the government of Petr Fiala and President Petr Pavel. It could almost be said that those 400 billion a day on the stock exchange is a monetary quantification of the value of international support for artillery ammunition towards Ukraine.
CSG currently buys ammunition around the world and sells it on. However, it wants to significantly invest in its own production and needs stock market capital for this purpose.
The world is changing, companies are investing in weapons
It seems that the whole ammunition initiative was not only a political, but also a business masterpiece. It definitively showed critics how a Czech can succeed on the international field with his cleverness. On the other hand, it is about money earned on the blood that flows in Ukraine in streams.
The world is changing. We have probably read about a million times how the business model of the Czech economy is being exhausted. Looking at CSG, we can see where Czech industry can go. A Gigafactory is not just going to be built here, as stated by the new government. Therefore, question marks hover over the Czech AutoLand, illuminated by the advent of electromobility, where Czech companies will hardly play as prominent a role as before.
The arms industry has had a centuries-old tradition in the Czech Republic since the times of the first republic. The small state invested in it under the pressure of a looming conflict with Nazi Germany. The demand for weapons at the time did not appear out of nowhere.
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump are steering the world where the powerful have the decisive say at the expense of existing international law. We can call for calm and peace in our country as much as we like, but the players mentioned are completely deaf to these sounds. There is no choice but to invest in our own defense against their willfulness. The billions with which investors filled Strnad's pockets, show a calculation of how much people with money believe in the need for further armament in the world for the following years.
