Pale Fire Capital partner Jan Černý says in an interview for HN that over the next five years the group plans to invest EUR 400 million in strong European companies. “An investor, as I see it, is someone who acts like a good farmer, thinks long term, helps their companies grow dynamically, but does not leave scorched earth behind,” he says.

Text: Michael Mareš, Hospodářské noviny, 20 May 2026

He originally wanted to start something of his own, but after one weekend with Jan Barta and Dušan Šenkypl, everything changed. Jan Černý has become a new partner at the investment group Pale Fire Capital. In Czechia and the surrounding region, he will look for successful family businesses without successors and transform them into global players. Over the next five years, he plans to invest EUR 400 million.

For many years, Jan Černý helped grow the capital of billionaire Tomáš Krsek within the BHM group. He then wanted to strike out on his own, but as part of that idea he ultimately became, a month ago, a partner
– meaning a managing co-owner – of the Prague-based investment group Pale Fire Capital (PFC). The group is known for Jan Barta’s investment ideas and for Dušan Šenkypl’s team’s efforts to revive the ailing American giant Groupon. Now, thanks to Černý, PFC should also become stronger in private equity.

“I am experiencing a beautiful stage of my life, a real kind of builder’s enthusiasm. The dynamic within PFC is excellent. People here are focused on results, but at the same time they have a genuinely human face and a broader sense of purpose,” Černý says in his first interview in his new role.

Why did you leave BHM after such a long time?

Tomáš Krsek and I worked together for 14 years, and we started building BHM more than eight years ago. So thinking about the next step, about a change, was quite a natural development for someone who likes to set himself challenges. I am proud of what we managed to achieve at BHM Group, because together we built a truly pan-European investment group with assets of more than EUR 1 billion and investments in more than 20 countries. As the head of BHM Group, I found that position very comfortable, but when you do not feel any major tension, it can sometimes mean you are too deep in your comfort zone. And my life
philosophy is that real growth happens outside the comfort zone. That is one of the reasons I decided that if I was ever going to stand on my own feet, move even further and do truly big global things, now was the time. After all, I will soon be 40.

But originally you were motivated to build something entirely of your own, weren’t you?

I thought I would set up something of my own, raise money, put some of my own money into it and run it. But then things turned out a little differently. Let me take it step by step: the initial idea was that I wanted to build a long-term evergreen private equity fund, one without a clearly defined investment horizon. I started looking for partners and investors for it – people who would have genuinely “long” money, but who would also see the mission behind it, a mission I share as well: building European or global leaders out of local and regional champions. An investor, as I see it, is someone who acts like a good farmer: thinks long term, helps their companies grow dynamically, but does not leave scorched earth behind. I left BHM Group with this idea and saw interest from several aligned major investors who committed to investing.

What kind of size are we talking about?

I was certain that from the start I would have capital at least in the single-digit billions of Czech crowns, otherwise it would not have made sense. One of the investors I spoke to was Pale Fire Capital. I have known Dušan Šenkypl and Honza Barta for a long time. From the beginning, we knew that we understood each other and shared the same view of the world and of investing. So we went away for a weekend together to discuss my vision for the new business. We agreed to take three days and try to brainstorm it. But already on Friday evening, the guys committed to a fairly large investment in the single-digit billions, and then I asked: if we got everything done on the first evening, over the first bottle of wine, what are we going to do for the rest of the weekend?

And what did you do?

Then it really was brainstorming, but already about how to take our cooperation to a deeper level. That was where the foundation for the partnership was created. And when we left, we sensed that combining our
worldviews and our competencies could lead to something unique.

What role did you agree on?

The guys understood very well that I would never enter into any arrangement where it was not clear that we were working on an equal partnership basis. And that defined the role we then put on the table. My
primary responsibility is the development of all new private equity projects. In other words, we essentially transformed my idea of a fund that would also have been open to other investors into a new division of
Pale Fire Capital, because it matched the direction in which the guys themselves wanted to go.

The previous distribution of stakes among PFC partners was known. What will it look like now?

We have not announced it, because the structure is still being created; it is dynamic, so I do not want to tie myself to any specific numbers right now. But I can say that I have a fairly large stake in PFC and that I did not receive anything for free. I bought my stake with my own money, which I am also investing in our new projects. So I am effectively an equal equity partner who is joining the group not only with know-how, but also with resources.

What direction will you take with PFC?

We will build on what is specific to PFC: the combination of a builder, founder and tech mindset. At the same time, I want to bring a stronger focus to our strategy on the traditional economy of physical products
and services, where I will be looking for the intersection between the digital and traditional economies. We are developing a whole range of investment theses. But if I were to be specific and name some of the
basic ones, then, for example, the world is going through enormous volatility and geopolitical as well as technological change. I think many people have still not fully appreciated this aspect. Because at PFC we
are very deep in technology – and I myself now spend more time with AI than with my own wife – we have a great starting position to profit from it. The greatest investment opportunity today lies precisely in modernising companies through digital tools, whether AI, machine learning, robotics or the related digitalisation.

But that means rolling up your sleeves and going in to manage companies hands-on.

Already at partner level, we are used to going very deeply into the detail – really rolling up our sleeves, going into the companies and working intensively with management. That is our daily bread. Our six-partner base is very strong: Honza Barta as a brilliant macroeconomist and strategist; Dušan Šenkypl, a highly experienced process manager who now runs Groupon, a Nasdaq-listed company; David Holý, who is extremely effective at scaling our existing private equity portfolio; and other partners such as Jirka Ponrt and Petr Krajíček. Over the years, we have also built a very good network of managers who want to work with us.

You recently told me that the transformation opportunity lies mainly with family businesses. Why do you think that?

In many families that own truly excellent companies, natural successors are often missing. And when we imagine the choices facing current owners, it is often an unenviable position. It can happen that a potential
buyer from among strategic players absorbs the company and its identity effectively disappears, or decision-making rights move abroad. Or the company can be bought by a financial investor in the form of a closed-end private equity fund with a short-term horizon. Founders often see that as new owners simply leveraging the company, polishing EBITDA a little and selling it after five years, which is not always pleasant and rarely leads to long-term growth and stability. We approach it with a different view.

What kind of view?

We approach new investments with humility, equipped with genuinely long-term capital, an entrepreneurial heart and know-how. And with the idea of managing companies truly over the long term. We would like to
become a partner precisely for these succession stories, because what motivates us is building strong entrepreneurial stories in Europe, so that added value stays here and so that we can live well here.

How much money do you want to put into this?

Our target is very ambitious: EUR 400 million over the next five years. That is why we cannot remain only in Czechia; we will also look abroad for such stories. There are not hundreds of them here, but there are dozens.

In which sectors?

In terms of segments that are interesting from an investment perspective, we are open. One example is products and services for energy infrastructure, because we see the future there. Another is population
ageing or mental health. These are areas with a shortage of high-quality supply and growing demand, and in them we also see an intersection between investment opportunity and the possibility of doing something
useful for society.

Until now, PFC as a group has been more of an investment boutique. Will you now, in private equity, move closer in ambition and structure to groups such as Penta or KKCG?

Partly yes, but there are many factors that will always distinguish us from such groups. Above all, the way we think and operate. We still want to preserve our unique DNA. We are dynamic, hands-on, less corporate and less bureaucratic. But that certainly does not mean we are not structured; after all, today we already manage assets of more than EUR 2 billion. But we are very much built on the activity of individual, specific people, on meritocracy, trust and mutual respect.

Private equity has already been running at PFC for some time. What will happen to the existing portfolio?

It is relatively broad: from Aukro and technology projects such as itrinity, through the Polish insurance comparison platform Mubi and a stake in the unicorn Zwift, to manufacturing businesses such as Acond, a leading Czech producer of premium heat pumps. David Holý will continue to look after the existing portfolio; that role remains unchanged. I will get involved where it makes sense, where it brings new business.

When will the first investments come?

Within a matter of months, most likely in the autumn of this year. We also need to expand the existing team. We are looking for new colleagues who are ambitious, ideally with international experience, and who want to help build something new, fast, dynamic and large. We are talking about a handful of people. Artificial intelligence is genuinely used as the first source for any work we do at PFC. Thanks to that, we can free people’s hands from routine work, so they can devote much more time to work that truly adds value.

Really?

No exaggeration. AI is developing so quickly that what was true a month ago is now completely outdated. Dušan Šenkypl and I agree on this, and I dare say he is today one of the top five people in Czechia in terms of implementing AI in business. Personally, I use perhaps all the major large language models – Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT – but not at the level of chat, nor at the level of coworking, but genuinely at the level of AI agents.

How?

Before I left for this interview, I assigned my team of agents what they needed to process by the time we finish here. They are now running and creating independently. As soon as I return to it, I will have the first outputs.

Do you mean living people, or AI agents?

AI agents. But with a slight exaggeration, they really do behave like people at work. Once you create a sufficient ecosystem and context for them, you can assign them tasks like your internal team of real employees. In my team, for example, I have a financial expert, a sceptical lawyer, and an engineer who checks computer code for me. Alongside them is an independent “second opinion panel” that checks the outputs of the first team in a different model. Above my entire infrastructure stands a CEO – an orchestrator – who manages their work, checks whether they are doing tasks well, and receives their reports.

That sounds almost amusing.

Building a company is essentially a mix of constructing systems and rules, and adding a human element and empathy. For the first part, AI allows us to build processes and systems extremely quickly and change things at a very brisk pace. You see results almost immediately. And the results are already extremely high quality today. My role is to bring the human element into it: relationships, empathy and a deeper understanding of the business.

Are you not afraid of hallucinations, security issues and other errors that still appear in the work of AI agents?

Certainly. A certain degree of scepticism is appropriate, but it must not be excessive. I think we live in a fantastic time, that the future is here. Anyone who says otherwise may, in my view, only be skimming the
surface and has not yet gone into the real depth. If the system is well built, I dare say the error rate is lower than that of people. To give a specific example: I assign a market analysis to a junior analyst – a broader data analysis containing 60 files in PDF or XLS format with financial data – and I want an output. Today AI can handle that significantly faster and with a significantly lower error rate than the average junior.

What does that mean? The end of junior positions?

A limitation of junior work, at least in companies whose structure looks like a pyramid. That means there are many young, ambitious people at the bottom working hard for relatively low pay. At the top, there used
to be a few people who effectively profited from that. Gradually, the people at the bottom gained seniority and moved up the pyramid. This model will be obsolete within a few years; the structure will flatten and the base will shrink. The structure will look more like a cuboid.

If there are no juniors, where will seniors come from?

There will be fewer juniors, and they will have to demonstrate quality quickly. The path upward will be much faster than it has been, because the demands placed on them will be significantly higher. The initial filter for people will be tougher. Today, for example, a law firm can afford to hire 20 trainees and not concern itself too much with the selection process, because within the first year or two it will become clear, and within five years it will be refined who is a star and therefore stays. That approach will no longer be relevant, because technologically advanced companies and sophisticated clients will not want to pay for manual work. And real stars, if they can do 90 or 95 percent of the work themselves, will not need their help.

In recent days, has there been any task where you were genuinely surprised by what AI can already do?

I am convinced that AI can already process almost anything at middle-management level. It is not at the level of extreme experts; in some things it is still relatively naive. But with the right system, you can get to a point where the output is 80 to 90 percent truly excellent and better than that of an average employee. What really shocks me, however, is that with the right system and a sufficiently broad context, AI can create its own intuition-based conclusions. It can infer implicitly.

What does that mean?

Imagine you are preparing an analysis and asking questions A, B and C. You ask where a company should be heading, what its key parameters are, how I should set up the management remuneration scheme, and so on. Because an AI agent knows you, your work and all the projects you have ever worked on very well, and has access to virtually all information in the world almost immediately, it is able to build context and estimate what is actually behind the questions you are asking. And then it can suggest, for example, three further questions that are much more relevant to solving the problem. That is fascinating to me. It is already a capable consultant.

Back to PFC. What is it like working with Dušan Šenkypl and Jan Barta?

Excellent. Our relationship is based on absolute trust and mutual respect. That means we cooperate, but each of us focuses on a different part of the company. We trust each other that, in our given area, we are doing the maximum to deliver the highest possible value for the whole. We do not interfere in each other’s sections.

To exaggerate a little, in private equity you spend the money that Jan Barta earns on the stock markets?

His performance is exceptional, that is true. But you can look at it as me continuing to appreciate that money.

Among Czech investment groups, the trend is to open up to external investors. Is that also your path for the future?

In some projects, such as Groupon, which is listed on the stock exchange, others are already effectively investing with PFC, although that was not our intention or plan. Opening PFC up to external investors, however, is not on the table. A certain degree of openness exists only within the bond programme, which is part of normal business and financing. Otherwise, the fact remains that we have more funds than we have high-quality opportunities. And managing our own money gives us a great degree of freedom.

Finally, what is the ultimate mission for your work at PFC?

My goal is for large, prosperous businesses to remain here after us – businesses that will still be here in another 20 or 50 years. They will be technologically advanced, able to compete globally, and we will be truly proud of them. And all of this ideally on a large scale.