Czech billionaires expand UK footprint with major business acquisitions

Two large Czech companies owned by prominent domestic billionaires are making business inroads in the UK, with two separate large-scale deals. Sev.en Global Investments (GI), owned by Czechia’s fourth-richest person Pavel Tykač, and former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’ FutureLife company have expanded their presence in the UK via a range of acquisitions.

Energy company Sev.en GI has acquired Celsa Steel UK, a steel plant in Cardiff, Wales, with an annual production capacity of 1.2 million tons of low-emission construction steel. The acquisition, part of a broader purchase from Spain’s giant Celsa, also includes Celsa Nordic, which operates across Scandinavia. Together, the facilities focus on producing environmentally friendly steel products for the construction industry.

CEO of Sev.en GI Alan Svoboda emphasized the plants' “technologically unique” capacity to produce low-emission steel and their potential for long-term growth.

The steel industry acquisition marks Sev.en GI’s continued expansion beyond its traditional focus on energy and mining. Tykač has previously announced his plans to diversify into industrial sectors like steel and petrochemical production. In 2023, he bought the mining rights to over 2 billion tons of coal in North America.

Today, the company operates in Europe, Australia, and the U.S. Tykač also recently announced his plans to build five new photovoltaic power plants in Hradec Kralove by 2025.

Over in the healthcare sector, leader of Czechia’s opposition political party Babiš is focusing not only on parliament. His FutureLife healthcare company in the last week announced that it will acquire and open a large network of assisted reproduction clinics via artificial insemination. FutureLife has also recently expanded into 11 other countries, including Romania and Ukraine.

The healthcare network, founded a decade ago, now dominates over a third of the Czech market and reports annual revenues exceeding CZK 1 billion. The company says that it “creates a test-tube baby” once every 59 minutes. The total value of its assets currently stands at over CZK 30 billion.

Babiš also owns a network of specialized e-shops (Astratex, Sportega, Ovečkárna, Unuo) that cater to assisted-reproduction methods, although he has previously described his activity in the healthcare sector as “only passive.” His primary source of income is through massive conglomerate Agrofert.