J&T becomes the second largest agricultural group in the Czech Republic after Agrofert
The J&T Group completed the purchase of agricultural companies under Spearhead Czech and Spearhead Slovakia. The group announced this in a press release. She stated that this will expand the land on which her companies farm to 37,000 hectares and will become the second largest agricultural group in the Czech Republic after the Agrofert holding. The company did not disclose the above transaction.
The transaction was approved by the Office for the Protection of Economic Competition in December. It concerned ten agricultural companies in the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, which primarily engage in plant and animal primary production. According to J&T, it operates in the Czech Republic in the vicinity of Kardašová Řečica, Jihlava, Hradec Králové and Olomouc. Together with the new acquisitions, the group will now employ 450 people in agriculture in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The group stated that by expanding the portfolio of companies, it will produce, among other things, 90,000 tons of wheat annually, which represents its annual consumption by roughly 450,000 people in the Czech Republic. “The field of agriculture represents a long-term investment for us, among other things, because we perceive its strategic importance in the pan-European context,” said Dušan Palcr, vice chairman of the board of J&T Finance Group.
The Chairman of the Agricultural Union of the Czech Republic, Martin Pýcha, stated that in the Czech Republic, due to changes in agricultural subsidies, there are medium-sized companies for sale. “Non-agricultural firms such as banks are also entering the sector,” he said. According to him, the union would prefer if companies bought businesses that have been active in agriculture for a long time.
According to Pýcha, the union is also trying to convince business owners who want to sell their businesses to the sector to do so in an agricultural enterprise. He mentioned that, for example, sales to investment groups can further support the orientation towards the now most profitable crop production, which has a negative effect on food production in the Czech Republic. Pýcha also drew attention to the fact that plant production is beginning to prevail over animal production, while a balanced state would be ideal.
According to the consulting company Farmy.cz, the share of non-agricultural investors who buy land in the Czech Republic will increase from 2020. In 2021, this affected 48 percent of the plots sold through the company’s portal.