CSG finance chief Zdeněk Jurák: Czech defence group eyes space

Czech defence group Czechoslovak Group (CSG), owned by the richest Czech, Michal Strnad, is moving beyond ammunition and heading into space defence. Its finance chief, Zdeněk Jurák, spoke about the company’s plans at the Forbes “Best of Czechia” conference.

According to Jurák, building defence in space means helping the global geopolitical situation: “We can rattle our sabres in space so that nobody attacks anybody.” Ammunition, he stresses, was only a starting point, not the only area the group wants to focus on.

The pace of deals reflects this approach: as the moderator joked, news of a big investment appears almost every two weeks. A recent example is the Canadian start-up North Vector Dynamics, which develops air defence systems. Jurák explained that, thanks to the IPO and its new capital structure, CSG has received an investment-grade rating and can now raise large sums on capital markets around the world, not just in Europe and America. Before every major acquisition, he said, the company thinks about how not to upset the group’s existing ecosystem.

The space step: MDA Space. A few days ago CSG acquired almost 10% of the Canadian company MDA Space, a maker of space robotics and satellite systems, and became its largest shareholder. The strategy, according to Jurák, is to bring MDA to Europe and start cooperation right here. He is convinced that Europe, and the Czech Republic in particular, has quite a few strong space companies, from satellites to components, that have a future, and that CSG can offer them price competitiveness.

The link between the defence group and space works both ways, the finance chief said: in Canada, CSG wants to help use the defence industry for space technology, while in Europe MDA is to build the same for the needs of the European Union. The goal is to narrow the gap with China and the US, whose space capabilities Jurák calls extremely high.

The US and Europe’s key role. An important milestone for CSG was the purchase of the ammunition maker The Kinetic Group and its successful clearance by the US Committee on Foreign Investment. That opened the way to bids for the US Army: according to Jurák, it is now likely that the company’s chassis will be used in an American tactical gun project.

Despite diversifying in the US, Europe remains key for CSG. “We don’t have such huge state budgets behind us as German industry does, so we have to manage on our own and make the most of what we can do,” Jurák noted.

What comes after the war in Ukraine? In the finance chief’s view, the question itself is not so pressing: Europe, the US, Southeast Asia and even adversaries are arming, so new projects will keep appearing. He sees CSG’s future in diversification and new technologies, including space, which will complement classic equipment. These are the advanced developments the group wants to create and produce in Europe.

By the Around Prague newsroom