Poštová banka financed CEFC of China
The recent acquisition spree of Chinese private group CEFC in Czechia and Slovakia was financed by J&T group and the Slovak Poštová banka, owned by J&T. CEFC acquired assets totaling €1.5bn (real estate, brewery, machinery firm, or media), using €450m in loans from J&T Private Investments, €400m from J&T Finance Group and €94m from Poštová banka. The bank apparently funded the purchase of the largest German on-line travel agency, AIDU, and the Fluege.de airline ticket portal, acquired jointly by CEFC and Czech Rockaway Capital (Jakub Havrlant). However, the Chinese government put CEFC’s CEO Ye Jianming in jail, and the state-run Citic has taken over a majority stake in CEFC Europe. Two weeks ago, Citic repaid all CEFC loans, including those to Poštová banka. Citic has also taken over the CEFC’s 9.9% stake in J&T Finance Group and hence in Poštová banka.
