Although he never talks about it and describes the story of the creation of his business empire as the story of a start-up in a post-communist setting, Andrej Babiš can actually serve as an example of continuity with the communist era. The origins of his Agrofert date back to the first months of Czechoslovak freedom. And its roots grow from the loose soil of the foreign trade enterprise Petrimex.
Even before 1993, the year of Agrofert’s official creation, Babiš and his partners founded several new companies that helped each other financially and with know-how from former state-owned companies.
Although Babiš describes the beginning of his entrepreneurial career and the establishment of Agrofert as a loan of four million dollars from the US bank Citibank in 1994, in reality the establishment of the company was prepared shortly after the fall of the former regime. In 1990, the Slovak joint stock company Contix was founded. Alexej Belyaev, manager of the foreign trade company Petrimex, where Babiš also worked, became chairman of the board. Beljajev’s activities and business career, linked in particular to the Tatravagónka empire and his connections to top politicians, deserve a separate place in the History of Corruption. However, what is important for this passage is his role in the creation of the agrochemical conglomerate of the future Czech finance minister, prime minister and owner of the ANO movement.
In March 1991, under the direction of other Petrimex managers, the company Sima was founded and in 1993 Lubomir Šidala, Babiš’s colleague from Morocco, began to manage it. Later, Ivan Propper and Erik Rakicky, the son of Anton Rakicky, then head of Petrimex, who played a significant role in the beginnings of Agrofert, also joined Sima.
In 1991, the company Conamis appeared in the commercial register with Peter Lövinger as its director. The deputy director was Peter Dubrovay. Both played important roles in the next phase of Agrofert’s expansion. The structure of the linked companies also includes IPF Conamis Investment, which was founded in January 1992 by the same group of managers linked to Petrimex. Andrej Babiš was the chairman of the supervisory board. Savena, founded by Babiš’s contemporaries Vojtěch Agner and Viera Jurkovičová in 1991, appointed Babiš as managing director a few years later. In addition, another key component of the business plan to take over the chemical industry, the Swiss company Fertagra, appears as a shareholder in the Savena ownership structure. Agrofert was founded in 1993 by Petrimex, which was the sole owner of the company. According to Babiš, the establishment of the Czech branch was initiated by him and his associates. Petrimex’s money flowed into Agrofert and a large part of its employees moved there. From the above-mentioned companies from the time of the collapse of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic came contracts and know-how, which these companies gradually took over from Petrimex. It is therefore clear that the enterprising managers of the former foreign trade enterprise did not slack off and built up the business shortly after the civil voices of the Velvet Revolution had died down.
