The Czech Office for the Protection of Competition has allowed the investment group Penta to buy (through Penta Real Estate) the company ČSAD Praha Holding, which owns the Florenc bus terminal and adjacent land in the capital. The office announced this on its website. The companies did not disclose the price of the transaction, ČTK reports.
Penta Real Estate bought the parent company of ČSAD Praha Holding, Rextim Holding. "The Office found that the merger will not result in a significant distortion of competition and therefore issued a decision on the merger clearance, which has already become legally binding," the Office said, according to ČTK. Prague's largest bus terminal, the Florence Bus Terminal, stands on lucrative land, the upper part of which falls within the cadastre of Nové Město, the lower part within Karlín. In the past, the Penta Group wanted to buy the land of ČSAD Praha Holding, which is adjacent to the station. However, ČSAD announced in 2016 that it would build its own project on the land. ČSAD wanted to turn a brownfield site around the Florenc station into an urban complex with office space and apartments.
About 450 buses pass through the terminal every day. Vráblík estimated in June that ten million people passed through the station in 2019, a number that dropped by about a million after the pandemic. The terminal is operated by about 100 carriers. FlixBus and RegioJet are among those with the largest share of passes. The Florenc bus station is mainly used by international and long-distance transport. ČSAD Praha Holding was established in 2004 and is the successor of the defunct ČSAD ÚAN Praha Florenc and ČSAD Praha Pankrác. Rextim Holding was established in 2006. For the year 2022, it reported a turnover of CZK 423 million (€17.3 million), with an after-tax profit of CZK 358 million (€14.64 million). A third of Rextim Holding is jointly owned by Roman Šplíchal and Ivana Šplíchalová.
Penta Investments is a Central European investment group founded in 1994. It is active mainly in healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, retail, real estate development and media. Its portfolio companies employ more than 40,000 people. Penta operates in more than ten European countries, with offices in Prague, Bratislava and Warsaw. The main co-owners are businessman Marek Dospiva and the family of Jaroslav Haščák. Last year, the group posted a net profit of CZK 11.6 billion (€474 million), with companies in its portfolio generating sales of CZK 192 billion (€7.87 billion). It owns, among others, media firms Vltava Labe Media and News and Media Holding, betting company Fortuna Entertainment Group, Dr. Max, Empik, Slovalco and the Penta Hospitals chain, which owns or operates five acute care hospitals, two aftercare hospitals and 25 Alzheimer Home residential social services facilities.
