Czech Republic’s richest man Petr Kellner died in helicopter crash

Petr Kellner, the Czech Republic‘s richest person, died in a helicopter crash in Alaska, the United States, on Saturday, his financial group PPF said on Monday.

“We announce with the deepest grief that, in a helicopter accident in Alaska mountains on Saturday, March 27, the founder and majority owner of the PPF group, Mr. Petr Kellner, died tragically,” PPF said.

Kellner, 56, was an influential figure in the business circles of the Czech Republic. In 2020, Forbes listed him as the 68th richest person in the world and estimated his net worth at estimated at $17.5 billion.

Kellner graduated from the University of Economics, Prague Faculty of Industrial Economics, in 1986.

He made his fortune going back to the 1990s, when he, together with his partners, set up PPF as an investment company. PPF’s biggest move was to take a stake in what was used to be the nation’s largest insurer, Ceska Pojistovna.

According to PPF, five people died in the helicopter crash and the cause of the accident is being investigated.