"Central European financial groups are increasingly active in investing in markets previously dominated by their Western competitors, but they are also venturing into developed Western markets," says Božidar Djelić, Managing Director of Lazard Investment Bank, where he also heads the CEE region. He discusses the appetite for expansion of these capital-intensive groups and their position in M&A in the next podcast in the PFI Talks series.

Igor Mesenský patří mezi přední odborníky na M&A poradenství v České republice. V daném odvětví působí více než 26 let a za tu dobu pracoval na více než stovce transakcí. Má zkušenosti z tuzemských i přeshraničních transakcí, privatizací společnostní i oceňovacích projektů.

Marek Mora viceguvernér České národní banky, absolvent VŠE a postgraduálního studia ekonomie v Německu.

Kateřina je zakladatelkou a výkonnou ředitelkou Verdi Capital a zakladatelkou a předsedkyní představenstva fondu Green Horizon Rewables, který investuje do solární a větrné energie.

Lukáš Vácha je členem představenstva a obchodním ředitelem společnosti Conseq Investment Management. Absolvoval Fakultu financí a účetnictví na VŠE.

Jan Švejnar je ekonom, který působí na Kolumbijské univerzitě v New Yorku jako profesor globální ekonomie a ředitel Centra pro globální hospodářskou politiku (Center for Global Economic Governance – CGEG). Je spoluzakladatelem Centra pro ekonomický výzkum a doktorské studium Univerzity Karlovy (CERGE), které se později stalo součástí CERGE-EI, společného pracoviště Univerzity Karlovy a Národohospodářského ústavu AV ČR, v.v.i. (EI), kde předsedá Výkonnému a dozorčímu výboru.

Karel Horák je CEO a představenstva Home Credit Bank v Kazachstánu, absolvent VŠE a manažerského programu na IMD Business School.

Pavel Mucha je zakládajícím partnerem fondu Enern. Absolvoval VŠE a nyní se věnuje dálkovému studiu F. Kennedy School of Government.

Large technology companies such as Google, Facebook and Twitter should take more responsibility for the content that appears on their platforms, especially in relation to underage users. Both in the case of Facebook's takeover of Instagram and WhatsApp and Google's acquisition of navigation service Waze, the US antitrust system failed, says Robert Wigley, chairman of the UK Banking Association UK Finance

He has worked in the financial world for more than thirty years and recently published The Long Good Buy: Analysing Cycles in Markets, a book on market cycles and how and why periods of growth alternate with crises. Yet Peter Oppenheimer, director of macroeconomic research at Goldman Sachs, the US investment bank in Europe, says that in his entire career he has never experienced anything that could be compared to the current situation.

Český fond Green Horizon Renewables (GHR) ze skupiny BHM Group jednoho z nejbohatších Čechů Tomáše Krska tento týden oznámil uzavření obchodu s největším správcem aktiv na světě – společností BlackRock. Předmětem transakce je portfolio dostavených i připravovaných elektráren ve Finsku o celkovém výkonu 220 megawattů. BlackRock akvizice vyjde na celkem 7,1 miliardy korun. Miliardu a půl zaplatí akcionářům včetně fondu GHR, dalších 5,6 miliardy pak investuje do dostavby připravovaných zdrojů, kterou pro něj GHR prostřednictvím společnosti Winda Energy ve Finsku zajistí.

Zatímco v České republice žije téměř 80 procent lidí ve vlastním bytě či domě, v Rakousku či Německu si téměř polovina populace bydlení pronajímá. Ve velkých městech jako Berlín či Vídeň bydlí v nájmu dokonce více než tři čtvrtiny obyvatel. „Česko naopak prošlo v 90. letech obrovským šokem, co se vlastnění majetku a užívání služeb týče, proto je zde moderní nájemní bydlení stále ještě svým způsobem novinkou,“ popisuje Stanislav Kubáček, ředitel akvizičního týmu švédské společnosti Heimstaden.

In business and investing, the term transparency is often used. For Aswath Damodaran, the "enfant terrible" of the American academic and investor scene in the field of company valuation, it means common sense and honesty with oneself.

As reports and polls from Russia show, a large part of the public there refuses to admit that Russia, not Ukraine, is the origin of the biggest armed conflict in Europe since World War II. According to Daniel Kahneman, such a reaction is understandable not only in terms of the effectiveness of current Russian propaganda. "The reluctance to see one's country as the culprit of aggression, of crime, is very strong in most of us," says Professor Kahneman

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February, Professor Jeffrey Sachs has repeatedly called on world politicians to seek a path to peace through negotiations. The war has thus almost overshadowed economic issues in his articles and media appearances, but Jeffrey Sachs has been seeking answers to these questions as an academic and advisor to governments for decades.

When a speculative bubble bursts, many people usually lose. But history is littered with investment manias in which the suffering of individuals ultimately outweighed the benefits for all. In the 19th century, thousands of speculators burned their hands investing in the shares of American railway companies. But their losses enabled all Americans to switch from horse-drawn carriages to trains. The bursting of the internet bubble at the beginning of the 21st century left many empty family bank accounts, but also a network of data cables that allowed the digital economy to really take off within two decades. What may emerge from the ashes of the cryptocurrency mania is one of the topics Sumit Agarwal discusses.

Marc Faber, a Swiss investor living in Thailand, doesn't mince his words. In 2017, he dedicated an issue of his monthly investment newsletter, The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, to the raging racial conflicts in the US. At the time, he said, "Thank God America is populated by whites and not blacks. Otherwise, the United States would look like Zimbabwe, which may happen one day, but America has enjoyed at least 200 years of economic and political prominence." He later defended himself, telling the US television network CNBC in his defence that he was not a racist, but that "the facts should be described as they are, regardless of their degree of political incorrectness". This is also why Marc Faber said goodbye after an hour-long interview, saying: "I believe it is still politically appropriate to say - Merry Christmas!"

Patching holes in the state budget with debt is something that responsible politicians should avoid. Debt is supposed to be used to bridge wars, pandemics or crises, but most importantly the borrowed money is supposed to go into productive investments, says Barry Eichengreen in an interview.

Silicon Valley technology firms have a strong voice in Washington, says Krisztián Orbán, founder of the Oriens investment fund. That's also why in February the Fed guaranteed all of these companies' deposits in Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which collapsed due to poor business decisions. "We got our money out of SVB on time," says Orbán, whose fund is used to crisis situations.

"The bad guys only have to get hit once or twice, and believe me, they try very hard," says Joseph Wassel, director of the US government's FirstNet Authority, which oversees the world's most secure and largest telecommunications network for emergency responders, including firefighters and paramedics.

The US dollar has dominated world finance and trade for decades. But is the dollar's dominance as a global currency under threat? This is not the only question answered by Perry G. Mehrling, professor of international political economy at Boston University's Pardee School of Global Studies.

V anglosaském systému funguje byznys postavený na financování soudních sporů už více než 40 let. Pomáhat poškozeným domoci se spravedlnosti a zároveň díky tomu zhodnocovat peníze se ale postupně učí také investoři v kontinentální Evropě. Mezi nejvýraznější z nich patří i česká společnost LitFin, která se aktuálně podílí na 25 kauzách. Dohromady v nich jde až o dvě miliardy eur. Zakladatel a řídící partner LitFin Maroš Kravec přitom v rozhovoru říká, že by brzy mohlo jít až o desetinásobek – lidé či firmy se totiž nyní kvůli délce a komplikovanosti soudních sporů často o svoje nároky nehlásí, nebo o nich dokonce ani nevědí.

České firmy se dokážou celkem dobře adaptovat na vnější makroekonomické podmínky, říká Michal Kuděj, zakládající partner skupiny Tarpan Partners, která se zabývá poradenstvím při restrukturalizacích, insolvencích a akvizicích. Tím, že jde často o vlastnicky řízené a rodinné firmy, jež jejich majitelé chtějí časem předat generaci svých dětí, mají vyšší averzi k riziku a bývají opatrnější. I proto se Česko v posledních třech mimořádně náročných letech vyhnulo vlně bankrotů, před kterou řada ekonomů varovala po vypuknutí pandemie covid-19.

Nebýt mimořádně vysoké inflace, přijetí eura by v České republice mezi lidmi nyní nebylo vůbec tématem, myslí si předseda Národní rozpočtové rady Mojmír Hampl. V rozhovoru ze řekl, že pokud budou Češi se svojí měnovou a fiskální historií někdy přijímat společnou evropskou měnu, budou k tomu dotlačeni. Spíše než ostatní státy unie ale bude případný tlak na přijetí eura vyvíjet vlastní špatná hospodářská politika.

Three years ago, she had no social media audience, and now more than 650,000 people follow her on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and her newsletter. Economist Kyla Scanlon uses her reach to make economic issues accessible to both lay and professional audiences. She has her own podcast, provides video commentary for Bloomberg, and lectures at universities including MIT and Harvard. She also recently published her own book.

Daron Acemoglu, professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), does not share the general optimism about artificial intelligence. But instead of dystopian accounts of a world in the grip of algorithms, the author of the bestseller Why Nations Fail measures the impact on the performance of the global economy, in the language of numbers.

David Petraeus is a retired U.S. Army general, former head of the CIA and current partner at KKR, an American investment firm that operates around the world and has inspired the creators of the Hollywood blockbuster Wall Street. With a combination of experience and the ability to clearly understand world events, Petraeus is an authority on the implications and risks of world politics facing globally connected investment and business.

Andre Chelhot is an advisor to the board of directors of the British investment company Zelof & Partners. He is an investor in holiday property in Greece and has been Chief Economist at the Prague Finance Institute since this autumn.

Rafał Brzoska, the founder and CEO of InPost, a logistics company that operates over over 25 000 parcel lockers throughout Poland, constituting the largest business structure of this type in the country.

Anat Admati, Stanford finance professor, studied math in Israel and earned a Yale PhD. Since 2010, she’s debated financial regulation and governance globally, publishing in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Financial Times.

Kenneth Rogoff is a professor at Harvard University and a former Chief Economist of the IMF and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. He is well known for his pioneering work on central bank independence and exchange rates. He is the co-author of the widely used undergraduate textbook Foundations of International Macroeconomics.

In this in-depth interview from the PFI Talks series by the Prague Finance Institute, renowned economist Maurice Obstfeld — Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, former Chief Economist of the IMF, and former adviser to President Obama — issues a stark warning: America’s rising debt, eroding fiscal discipline, and political gridlock are creating systemic risks far beyond its borders.

The End of Globalization, Why Europe Is Doomed

"We rely almost entirely on the brilliance and innovation of others."

"Totalitní tendence nejsou náhoda, ale důsledek."

Warns of an AI Bubble and Debt Supercycle Threatening U.S. Markets

U.S. universities became more interested in political advocacy than search for truth.

"We're Heading Back to the 1930s"

"Most people massively overestimate how happy money will make them."

Why Global Debt Is Becoming Dangerous Again

"To be profitable is a necessary condition, but it's not the purpose of a company."

"The most profitable companies are not the most profit-oriented."

"Risk and reward will always be linked. And if they aren't, someone is lying to you."

"Money really is the thing that makes the modern world go around."

"The World Is Breaking into Blocs."

Americans’ distrust of the economy is miles away from the hard data that indicates all is well. “With the unemployment rate at its lowest level in 50 years and inflation approaching two percent, it’s pretty strange that the consumer confidence indicator is still pretty low,” thinks Nobel laureate and economics professor Paul Krugman.

The story of the German financial company Wirecard sounds like the subject of a film. A company with the aura of a European tech giant challenging its American rivals collapsed in 2020, with its path to ruin punctuated by falsified accounts, empty mailboxes in the Philippines and the founder’s escape. The story of the fraud, which many have long refused to believe, has been gradually unravelled since 2014 by Dan McCrum, a journalist at the Financial Times. Last year he published a book, Money Men, and made a documentary based on his reporting. He described the ins and outs of the case during an interview on another PFI Talks podcast.