Think like a criminal

To analyze PPF, you must think like a criminal. When O2 CR announced plans to lend Kč 25bn to PPF, analysts and small shareholders practically went into shock, because no moral person could even fathom such a blatantly unfair proposition. With apologies for our French, we said that PPF was f***ing O2's minority shareholders, and the markets agreed, sending the O2 share price down by 27% since then. PPF now appears to be doing it again. According to HN, PPF has founded Česká telekomunikační infrastruktura for hiving off O2's infrastructure assets. The new company is owned 100% by PPF, and not by O2 CR, which suggests that O2 plans to sell the infrastructure assets to PPF at a knock-down price. Why, after all, give minority owners a stake in all that EU money that PPF plans to get for high-speed internet infrastructure, right? Of course O2 will have all the proper papers, including a fancy valuation from a Big Four accounting firm. The Czechs have invented a word for this. It's called tunneling, and it's what criminals do.