Czech entrepreneur Karel Komárek celebrated his birthday on Tuesday in the style befitting a billionaire, winning the right to operate the UK national lottery for 10 years.
“The best bday present ever,” he declared, via social media site LinkedIn.
The seeds of his timely victory were sown three decades earlier, in the aftermath of Czechoslovakia’s 1989 Velvet Revolution against the collapsing Soviet Union.
Komárek, who grew up in a two-bedroom flat in the South Moravian town of Hodonín, was 20 at the time. His father lent him $10,000 and he started his own business, selling industrial parts.
That business grew into KKCG, an empire spanning oil and gas, property, technology and lotteries.
Entrepreneurial success has given the 53-year-old an estimated £6bn fortune and a jetset lifestyle. Komárek, his wife, Stepanka, and their four children can take advantage of homes in the Czech Republic, Palm Beach in Florida, and the ski resort of Verbier, in the Swiss Alps.
But as Komárek closed in on the lottery bid, his ties to Russia have come under scrutiny. His oil and gas business has included partnerships with Kremlin-controlled gas firm Gazprom, with which he retains a gas storage joint venture.
Komárek reacted quickly, condemning Vladimir Putin’s “barbarism” in an open letter. He is now in talks with the Czech government to nationalise the asset and force Gazprom out.
The billionaire is used to confronting troubling business disputes head on.
In 2002, Komárek sued Scottish oil company Ramco, after it commissioned a report about him following a commercial row.
According to court documents, the report, written by a group of former MI6 spies, “implicated the claimants in corruption and in one instance in murder”.
Described in court as being akin to a James Bond plot, the allegations were allegedly passed to several high-ranking members of the Czech and British governments, including the then foreign minister, Robin Cook.
The allegations were never tested in court because Ramco did not seek to prove that they were true. The trial collapsed and Komárek said he was “disappointed” that no apology was ever made.
A spokesperson said Komárek had been the subject of a “malicious accusation that was quickly proven to be false at the time”.
They said that Komárek’s business interests had “expanded across Europe and easily passed rigorous proprietary tests” in every country where they operate.
