Pavel Juříček hands Czech firm Brano Group to his son, slams Europe

The owner of Brano Group, Pavel Juříček, who recently turned 70, has spent ten years preparing his son Václav to take over the business. The company, with a turnover of around six billion crowns, is passing to its heir, while the founder used The Forbes Show podcast to explain, among other things, why Europe should return to Russian gas.

In his view, handing a company to your children is sometimes harder than building it. Juříček wanted to pass on to his son not just management but responsibility for the work of his life, which the son is expected to carry on. That is why the family has its own “constitution” with a clearly written vision for the company’s future.

He is not leaving business himself: through PJ Holding he plans to focus on investments. He is most drawn to healthcare and technologies such as hydrogen. He has also co-founded the Antares mental health clinic in Brno, which is meant to serve every generation, adults and children alike.

Social media and children

Juříček believes social media deforms children: instead of books and playing ball outside, the young generation is “glued” to their phones. In his words, it is a “lollipop” that children cannot give up, and the addiction causes problems in families and at school and affects mental health.

Europe, China and the price of gas

His assessment of Europe is even harsher. High energy prices, excessive regulation and a shortage of technical education, he argues, weaken industry and make it hard for companies to withstand global competition. The US and China, by contrast, offer an environment where business grows at a different pace, and that is where he is moving his production.

“Europe is more dead and backward. China is really trying, the conditions there are incredible because business is supported. Technologically they have long been ahead of us,” Juříček claims. He is sceptical about the future of the European car industry: to remain an industrial power, Europe needs to stop tying companies’ hands.

The entrepreneur also touched on the price of gas. The US is a major supplier of LNG to Europe, and, he says, it is “wringing Europe out like a rag”. Europe is currently buying gas from the Americans at €99.27 per megawatt-hour, while in the US it costs between nine and eleven dollars. Juříček thinks Europe will have to look for its own sources, but in the end it will probably have no choice but to partly return to Russia as well. This is the entrepreneur’s personal position, not an official line.

In the full version of the podcast he talks about how Tomáš Baťa inspires him, which mistakes he would avoid today, why his dispute over Mora-top in Strasbourg ended and why he would never return to politics.

By the Around Prague newsroom