The board of Royal Mail’s parent company, International Distribution Services (IDS), announced in May it had agreed to a takeover of the postal service by EP Group, which had valued the firm at £5.3bn.
But who is Mr Kretinsky and what is his background?
The 48-year-old is ranked 33rd on The Sunday Times Rich List with an estimated net worth of £6bn – up £2bn since 2023.
Low profile
He is known as the “Czech Sphinx” – a reference to the mysterious mythical creature – reportedly due to his enigmatic nature and reluctance to speak about his investments in public.
Mr Kretinsky is known for keeping a low profile and rarely gives interviews, but is said to be a keen Anglophile.
Czech journalist Michael Mares once described him to the New York Times as someone who “you can actually meet downtown, or see driving his [Porsche] Panamera… he lives here, but he’s not someone who will be in a paper”.
Image: The billionaire reportedly holds a 40% share in Sparta Prague, pictured here in action against Liverpool earlier this year. Pic: Reuters
What is his background?
Mr Kretinsky was born into a high-achieving family in the Czech city of Brno. His mother was a top judge, while his father was a doctor of computer science.
After graduating with a degree in political science, he worked as a lawyer before joining investment group J&T Finance Group in 1999.
He quickly rose up its ranks to become a partner in 2003, before making his first significant investment a year later in Czech football team Sparta Prague.
Mr Kretinsky is now the co-owner of his boyhood club and reportedly holds a 40% share.
Image: Daniel Kretinsky, second from right, watches West Ham’s European Conference League final victory over Fiorentina last year. Pic: AP
What are his other investments?
The billionaire made much of his fortune from energy and fossil-fuel investments, but has a variety of business interests in countries spanning his home nation, Germany, Italy, Slovakia, the Netherlands and the UK.
They include Eustream, which moves Russian gas via pipelines running through Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and sportswear retailer Footlocker.
In 2009, he became heavily involved in the founding of J&T’s energy investment company EPH. He is the current chairman and majority shareholder of the now multi-billion pound company, which is part of a network of linked firms.
In 2018, he snapped up a 49% stake in French Newspaper Le Monde, followed by a 3.05% stake in Sainsbury’s two years later – becoming its fourth-largest shareholder.
He later raised his investment in the supermarket chain to nearly 10%.
Mr Kretinsky made another splash into the UK market in 2021 when he bought a 27% stake in West Ham United football club – a deal worth £150m which was first revealed by Sky News.
His EP Group already owns 27.6% of the Royal Mail.
Image: Mr Kretinsky’s villa in Prague. Pic: AP
What does he spend his money on?
Mr Kretinsky owns a 15-bedroom house in London’s Bishop Avenue – known as billionaire’s row – which he bought for £65m in 2015 and once rented to pop star Justin Bieber for a reputed £25,000 a week.
He also spent €21.5m (£18.3m) buying a Parisian townhouse down the road from the Elysee Palace from Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev.
The billionaire also owns a 25% share of the Velaa exclusive private island resort in the Maldives.
He lives near his office in Prague and has been redeveloping a property near Sparta’s ground known as Villa Kapsa, which was formerly the Iranian embassy.
At that price, the company’s founder and chief executive, Will Shu, would be in line for a windfall of more than £170m.
Deliveroo further announced, before trading on Monday, that it had suspended its £100m share buyback programme.
The opening share price reaction took the value to 171p per share – still shy of the 180p on the table – and well under the 390p per share flotation price seen in 2021.
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Deliveroo’s shares have weakened nearly 50% since their market debut.
The deal is not expected to face regulatory hurdles as it provides DoorDash access to 10 new markets where it currently has no presence.
But a takeover would likely represent a blow to the City of London given the anticipated loss of a tech-focused player.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “If the deal is done at that price, the company will fail to shake off the ‘Floperoo’ tag it was saddled with after its disastrous IPO debut in 2021.
“Even though Deliveroo has finally broken through into profitable territory, the prolonged bout of indigestion around its share price has continued.
“The surge in demand for home deliveries during the pandemic waned just as competition heated up. Deliveroo’s foray into grocery deliveries has helped it turn a profit but it’s still facing fierce rivals.”
She added: “The DoorDash Deliveroo deal will be unappetising for the government which has been trying to boost the number of tech companies listed in London.
“If Deliveroo is purchased it would join a stream of companies leaving the London Stock Exchange, with too few IPOs [initial public offerings] in the pipeline to make up the numbers.”
A trade deal with the US is “possible” but not “certain”, a senior minister has said as he struck a cautious tone about negotiations with the White House.
Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips there was “a serious level of engagement going on at high levels” to secure a UK-US trade deal.
However, Mr McFadden, a key ally of Sir Keir Starmer, struck a more cautious tone than Chancellor Rachel Reeves on the prospect of a US trade deal, saying: “I think an agreement is possible – I don’t think it’s certain, and I don’t want to say it’s certain, but I think it’s possible.”
He went on to say the government wanted an “agreement in the UK’s interests” and not a “hasty deal”, amid fears from critics that Number 10 could acquiesce a deal that lowers food standards, for example, or changes certain taxes in a bid to persuade Donald Trump to lower some of the tariffs that have been placed on British goods.
And asked about the timing of the deal – following recent reports an agreement was imminent – Mr McFadden said: “We’ll keep working with the United States and keep trying to get to an agreement in the coming weeks.”
As well as talks with the US, the UK has also ramped up its efforts with the EU, with suggestions it could include a new EU youth mobility scheme that would allow under-30s from the bloc to live, work and study in the UK and vice versa.
Mr McFadden said he believed the government could “improve upon” the Brexit deal struck by Boris Johnson, saying it had caused “an awful lot of bureaucracy and costs here in the UK”.
He said “first and foremost” on the government’s agenda was securing a food and agriculture and a veterinary agreement, saying it was “such an important area for the UK and an area where we’ve had so much extra cost and bureaucracy because of Brexit”.
He added: “But again, as with the United States, there’s no point in calling the game before it’s done. We’ve still got work to do, and we’re doing that work with our partners in the EU.”
The Cabinet Office minister also rejected suggestions the UK would have to choose between pursuing a trade deal with the US and one with the EU – the latter of which has banned chlorinated chicken in its markets – as has the UK – but which the US has historically wanted.
On the issue of chlorinated chicken, Mr McFadden said the government had “made clear we will not water down animal welfare standards with either party”.
“But I don’t agree that it’s some fundamental choice beyond where we have to pick one trading partner rather than another. I think that’s to misunderstand the nature of the UK economy, and I don’t think would be in our interests to put all our eggs in one basket.”
Also speaking to Trevor Phillips was Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who said the government should be close to closing the deal with the US “because we got very close last time President Trump was in office”.
She also insisted food standards should not be watered down in order to get a deal, saying she did not reach an agreement with Canada when she was in government for that reason.
“What Labour needs to do now is show that they can get a deal that isn’t making concessions, so we can have what we had last month before the trade tariffs, and we need serious people doing this,” she said.
UK economic growth could be “postponed” for two years amid a toxic cocktail of headwinds for confidence, according to a respected forecast which says further interest rate cuts may help lift the mood.
EY ITEM Club, which uses the Treasury’s economic modelling, downgraded expectations for output in both 2025 and 2026 in its latest report.
It warns of a direct hit from Donald Trump‘s trade war and from persistent high inflation in the UK economy.
But the forecast says the biggest impact would come from weaker sentiment among both households and businesses, given the surge in uncertainty and hits to global growth caused by the imposition of tariffs.
A “baseline” 10% tariff on imports from most countries around the world is in place while UK-produced steel, aluminium and cars are subject to duties of 25%.
Around 16% of all goods shipped abroad head for the United States typically but the study said that weaker demand for exports would likely hit that number.
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It forecast UK growth of 0.8% this year – down from the 1% it expected three months ago – and a figure of 0.9% for 2026.
That last figure represented a downgrade of 0.6 percentage points.
These are not the numbers the Treasury will want to see, coming in even lower than the International Monetary Fund’s downgrades last week, as it leads work on the government’s stated priority of securing economic growth.
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1:10
What IMF said about the economy
It has been accused of an own goal through the chancellor’s tax increases on business, which came into effect at the beginning of this month.
At the same time, households are grappling a surge in bills, including those for energy, water and council tax, which are threatening to depress spending power further.
Data on Friday showed a renewed slump in consumer confidence and sharp increases in the number of firms in “critical” financial distress and going to the wall.
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19:33
US trade deal ‘possible, not certain’
EY said the weaker global economic backdrop and spiralling levels of uncertainty would weigh on both families and businesses.
It warned the consumer mood remained “cautious” amid the continuing pressures on household budgets, further limiting demand for major purchases.
Anna Anthony, regional managing partner for EY UK & Ireland, said: “There had been signs that the economy was exceeding expectations in the opening months of 2025, but a combination of global trade disruption, uncertainty, and persistent inflation look likely to postpone the UK’s return to more moderate levels of growth.
“Businesses thrive on certainty, so it’s unsurprising that an unpredictable global market is translating into lower levels of business investment over the short term.
“While conditions remain challenging, there are still some grounds for optimism.
“The services-led UK economy is projected to see continued growth this year and gradual interest rate cuts should slowly bolster business and household spending.
“Over time, the unpredictable global landscape may offer opportunities for the UK to position itself as a stable, attractive destination for investment.”