Czech PPF’s chief investment officer, Didier Stoessel, appears ready to take on large international streaming platforms such as Netflix and HBO in PPF’s home markets, led by Czechia, where PPF has a strong footing through its Oneplay, into which the group recently merged its streaming platform Nova Voyo and sports O2 TV.

“If we add up all these channels together, then the overall viewership on our markets is growing,” Stoessel was quoted as saying by the business section of the Czech online news outlet Seznam Zprávy (SZ), which noted that Oneplay currently has 1.4mn subscribers in Czechia.

Stoessel made the comments in a business channel CNBC Exclusive, and SZ noted that outgoing PPF CEO Jiří Šmejc commented extensively on the changes in the format of PPF’s sports and entertainment branches in a recent press conference.

“We have tried to develop a platform where, in a living room – or as we say on a big screen, on the television screen – you find everything in one place,” he said, adding that “our aim is to be the most used service in Czechia. That is our goal."

PPF wants the number of Oneplay subscribers to rise to 2.5mn in five years, and both Stoessel and Šmejc stated that PPF’s focus will be on “local content”.

“We are in smaller markets, where it is hard for companies such as Netflix to create so much local content like we can do. And that is our competition advantage,” Šmejc also said.

In a separate development, Reuters reported that PPF could be teaming up with the Berlusconi family’s MediaForEurope MFE in a joint bid for the German ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE broadcasting company.

“PPF, which owns private TV stations across six Eastern European countries, is open to considering a joint bid with MFE among options under review for ProSieben, although no decision has been made yet,” Reuters wrote, referring to its sources.

Earlier in May, PPF announced an offer to buy the stocks of ProSieben at €7 per stock in a push to expand its existing share of 14.94% in ProSiebenSat.1 to 29.99%. The offer came in response to MFE’s bid to increase its own footing in ProSieben to just over the 30% threshold in March, which normally triggers a 100% takeover offer under German law, Reuters noted earlier.

As bne IntelliNews covered earlier in May, PPF reported a record net profit of €3.2bn in 2024. The year 2024 was heralded by the sale of 50% plus one stock in the PPF Telecom to a United Arab Emirates telco company e&. The €2.2bn resulted in e& acquiring a controlling stake in PPF’s telecommunication assets in Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia and Slovakia and was conditionally approved by the European Commission last September.

At a press conference on the 2024 results, Šmejc also announced he is to step down as PPF CEO in June, confirming earlier speculations in the Czech media, and said he will join PPF’s supervisory board while continuing activities with his Emma Capital group.

Šmejc took over as PPF's CEO about a year after PPF's founder, Petr Kellner, died in a heliskiing accident in Alaska in 2021. Šmejc will be succeeded by Stoessel and long-term PPF CFO Kateřina Jirásková, who are set to be the new joint CEOs of PPF.