As bankers, policymakers and pundits packed their bags in readiness to travel to Prague for the IMF/World Bank conference, the Czech Republic’s most (in)famous Financier was making no such arrangements. Viktor Kozeny, aka the pirate of Prague or the bouncing Czech, will be 5,000 miles away, sitting out proceedings in the comfort of his Bahamas home.
| Kozeny: prodigal’s return? | ||||||
For those who may have forgotten Kozeny, he is best known as the man responsible for both the success and discrediting of the privatization programme undertaken by Czechoslovakia in the early 1990s. His Harvard funds became the talk of the town when in 1991 they hit TV screens and billboards, promising investors a fairytale return on the privatization vouchers available to each voting citizen – a 1,000% profit was guaranteed within a year and a day.
Good to its word, “the fund with the American name” yielded more than 10 times up-side for its shareholders. It also made Kozeny a very rich man, but soon the local hero was taking Flak from all directions, facing allegations of channelling money into his own pocket and of basing investment decisions on state information acquired from former secret policemen.
With the possibility of charges looming in 1994, Kozeny traded his Czech passport for Grenadian and Irish ones. Dividing his time between a Bahamas hideaway, a $25 million London home and a house in Colorado, the 37-year-old Czech has never since set foot in his homeland.
When Euromoney caught up with Kozeny in the Bahamas recently however, he revealed an interest in returning to the Czech Republic.
Kozeny counters the view that he may be persona non grata and says he has been a stabilizing factor in Czech politics, “keeping [prime minister Vaclav] Klaus in for a good two terms.”
But while Kozeny may be right to say that there is “a great deal of mutual respect between [present prime minister Milos] Zeman, Klaus and myself,” he will have a task on his hands to win over disgruntled shareholders in Harvard Industrial Holdings, each awaiting a liquidation payout. For it looks as if Kozeny may one day be asking for their votes. He is considering a possible return, “to do something for the people in a quasi-governmental capacity”.
He says: “I want to jump-start discussions there about what the future may look like and what changes we can make.” Stopping short of announcing a bid for the presidency, Kozeny clearly has more in mind than the role of a humble civil servant facilitating political debate.
Kozeny argues that “a smaller, leaner government is needed. It must be managed as a business.”
The whole country must have a rethink, he argues. “The service sector and tourism is not enough. A big change is needed in dealing with the stagnant environment we have in the Czech Republic. How are we to keep pace with the new technologies of the US?”
A full interview with Kozeny, and the story of his troubled ventures in Azerbaijani privatization, will appear in the October edition of Euromoney.
Ben Beasley-Murray
