The company BTL together with Lucerna Palace's current owner Dagmar Havlová have founded the company Palác PL. Havlová has invested the property of Lucerna into Palác PL retaining a 25% share. The remaining 75% have been acquired by BTL in exchange for almost CZK 1 billion (€40 million), reports Forbes.cz.
Dagmar Havlová (sister-in-law of former President Václav Havel) acquired one of the symbols of Prague's cultural life in the nineties from her husband Ivan Havel. At that time, he transferred half of the palace to her after he and his brother Václav acquired it in restitution. Havlová fought a long battle for the second half, which ended only in 2016.
It soon became clear that in Lucerna, as a national cultural monument, the smallest repair is significantly time and financially expensive. "Renovation started around 2019, but I found out very soon how extremely financially demanding it is. The bank didn't want to finance it anymore, so I suspended the reconstruction and after consulting with the family, we started looking for a partner in agreement," summarizes Havlová.
BTL has already similarly saved another building: the Municipal Savings Bank in Karlovy Vary. The company bought an impressive Art Nouveau house during the pandemic and opened it for cultural and artistic purposes.
Today, BTL generates EBITDA profitability in the billions of Czech crowns. Thanks to this, it has the room to "give something back to the society", as Tomáš Drbal, Technical Director at BTL explained. "Everything will go towards large-scale renovations and related repairs, I'm not taking any money from the transaction," closed Dagmar Havlová.
