Czechoslovak Group AS would like to invest "hundreds of millions of euros” in Ukraine, its billionaire owner and Chief Executive Officer Michal Strnad told reporters in Prague on Wednesday.
CSG is in talks with state-owned arms group Ukroboronprom on a potential joint venture, and looking for suitable sites to make artillery and tank shells, as well as heavy equipment, he said.
With Ukraine running out of supplies and US aid stalled in Congress, European countries are trying to fill the gap with their own stockpiles as well as off-the-shelf purchases from outside the continent. CSG alone has increased production of large-caliber ammunition at its plants in Slovakia, Spain and Serbia more than 10-times since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion, according to Strnad.
"It’s not easy to manage such rapid growth,” said the 31-year-old, whose net worth is $2 billion, according to Forbes. "If we have an agreement, we would transfer our technology to Ukraine. That way we could use their capabilities and their people to ramp up production of artillery and tank ammo.”
Besides ammunition, CSG makes Tatra military and civilian trucks, armored vehicles and wheeled self-propelled howitzers, as well as modernizing Soviet-era T72 tanks for the Ukrainian army. To meet surging global demand, it is building new production halls in the Czech Republic, and it expects to complete a $1.9 billion acquisition of US-based Vista Outdoor Inc’s small-ammunition business next month.
CSG has so far relied primarily on loans from local banks, but after the Vista deal it seeks to refinance all its debt with a combination of syndicated loans as well as international bonds in euros and dollars, according to Strnad.
"After the closing of the Vista deal, we would like to refinance the whole group,” he said. "That’s what we’re working on.”
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