Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on December 8, 2025
PRAGUE, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Czech billionaire Andrej Babis will become prime minister on December 9, after his populist ANO party won an October election. President Petr Pavel said he would appoint Babis after he cleared conflict-of-interest concerns by agreeing to shift his Agrofert business group to an independently governed trust.
BABIS' HOLDINGS
Babis' net worth is $4.3 billion, according to Forbes magazine, and he is among the 10 richest Czechs.
Babis took over part of a communist-era trading firm in the 1990s and built it into Agrofert, his main asset.
He also separately holds investments worth at least hundreds of millions of euros in various companies through a fund called Hartenberg and the Imoba company. He has not said he would make any changes to his control of those holdings.
GOVERNMENT CONNECTIONS
As prime minister and a member of the EU's top council of heads of government, Babis will be deciding on national and pan-European regulations, taxes and subsidies.
Babis' firms have received public contracts, and investment incentives worth tens of millions of euros - such as tax relief - from the Czech, Slovak and Hungarian governments.
They get European Union payments for farmed land and animals bred, according to the firm's 2024 annual report.
They have also received subsidies for innovative investment projects from EU funds. Some those dating to Babis' previous term in office in 2017-2021 have been stopped or are subject to legal and administrative battles.
When Babis was prime minister previously, he transferred his assets to trust funds, which courts and the European Commission later ruled to be insufficient. The new set-up is stricter, he said, going beyond legal requirements.
AGROFERT
Agrofert is a conglomerate of around 230 companies around central Europe in farming, food processing, fertilizers, plastics, fuels, forestry and other businesses.
It has around 29,000 employees and its largest firms are in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Germany and Austria.
Its 2024 revenue was 212 billion crowns ($10.2 billion), and net attributable profit of 7 billion crowns, up from 2.1 billion in 2023, helped by one-off income from the sale of the group's media house and a chemicals business.
It received 1.7 billion crowns in subsidies in 2024, most tied to farm production under the EU's farm policy.
ADBLUE, FERTILISERS, PLASTICS
It is a significant European maker of urea-based diesel engine additive AdBlue, as well as ammonia, fertilisers, plastics, solvents, tar products and biofuels.
Among its major firms in this segment are SKW Stickstoffwerke Piesteritz, GreenChem, Duslo, Deza, Precheza and Lovochemie.
Recent acquisitions include the 810 million euro takeover of Austrian energy group Borealis' nitrogen business in 2023 and the purchase last month of Rotterdam ammonia port terminal OCI Ammonia Holding for 290 million euros.
WHEAT, BREAD, MEAT AND EGGS
It owns major poultry and meat processing companies, bakeries, milk processing firms across central Europe. Agrofert food products are ubiquitous in Czech supermarkets.
It operates farms on more than 140,000 hectares, is a major poultry, pig and cattle breeder and has forestry and timber interests.
OTHER ASSETS
Babis is the majority owner of Hartenberg Capital, which is led and minority-owned by investment professional Jozef Janov. Its investments include:
- Majority in Future Life - 60 reproduction clinics in 16 European countries that have given birth to 166,956 babies, according to the company's website. It also includes hospitals providing other care.
- e-commerce firm enterstore, including brands such as Astratex and Miss Mary lingerie, real estate projects and aircraft maintenance.
IMOBA
IMOBA owns several restaurants and also the Capi Hnizdo (Stork Nest) conference and entertainment centre near Prague. Babis faces a trial over receiving a 2 million euro EU subsidy to help build the project, which prosecutors say was fraudulently claimed.
Babis has returned the amount and denies any wrongdoing. An appeals court struck down Babis' acquittal in the case and ordered a retrial, but Babis may avoid a rerun if parliament, controlled by his allies, votes not to lift his immunity.
($1 = 20.7350 Czech crowns)
(Reporting by Jan Lopatka; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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