Shares in Prague-headquartered regional weaponry and machinery conglomerate Czechoslovak Group (CSG) rose strongly after its debut on the Amsterdam Euronext bourse on January 23, giving the company a market capitalisation of over €32bn as of 1pm local time. Trading also began on Prague’s unregulated Free Market.

According to a Euronext statement, CSG’s debut was the “world’s largest defence IPO ever recorded, both in terms of amount raised and market capitalisation”. 

Few in Prague would have envisioned such a trajectory of the CSG business less than five years ago, but the group’s position has been boosted dramatically by the hike in defence spending across Europe since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. 

As one of the largest defence groups in the country, CSG took its place at the centre of the revival of Czech defence and weaponry industry. 

"Becoming a publicly listed company demonstrates our commitment to high standards of transparency, disclosure and corporate governance and strengthens our ability to invest in innovation, expand our global reach and deliver on our mission to be a critical long-term supplier of advanced defence and industrial solutions to NATO states and Government partners worldwide,” said CSG chairman Michal Strnad, as quoted in Euronext’s press release.  

In April 2024, CSG announced revenue of €1.73bn in 2023, which was a record-breaking year, cruising on the back of booming deliveries in the defence industry. This was a 71% growth year on year, while the group’s Ebitda amounted to €439mn, doubling y/y. The group’s net profit reached €210mn, an increase of 49% y/y.

As bne IntelliNews reported last month, CSG registered the steepest percentage increase in arms sales revenues on the list of 100 largest arms-producing companies worldwide compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

CSG revenues rose by 193% year-on-year in 2024 to $3.6bn (€3.1bn) SIPRI highlighted, noting that “the company attributes the majority of its revenue to Ukraine,” and that CSG “benefited from the Czech Ammunition Initiative, a government-led project to source artillery shells for Ukraine”. 

The strong growth continued into 2025. As bne IntelliNews reported in November, CSG registered a rise in revenue of 82.4% y/y in the first three quarters of the year.

CSG also rose in the Česká elita (Czech elite) list of most valuable Czech-owned companies where it sits fifth in this year's edition, the highest-ranked weaponry company, and is valued at CZK256bn (€10.5bn), or by CZK156bn more than last year.

International expansion 

CSG also expanded internationally after it acquired 70% of Fiocchi Munizioni at the end of 2022. Fiocchi is an Italian premium and super premium small-calibre ammunition manufacturer, which Michal Strnad then described as “the largest financial investment in the history of our group”.

In the same year, CSG also became the 100% owner in DAKO-CZ, the leading Czech manufacturer of pneumatic, electromechanical and hydraulic brake systems for rail vehicles.

Towards the end of 2024, CSG completed the lengthy process to acquire the Kintetic Group from US Vista Outdoor after CSG increased the purchase price for the Kinetic Group to $2.225bn.

Last year, CSG announced it is to build an ammunition site in the US through its MSM North America branch after MSN won a US Army contract.

The so-called Future Artillery Complex (FAC) is to be part of the US Army ammunition plant in Iowa, and MSM North America was awarded the $632mn contract to design, construct and commission what CSG described as “the most advanced large-calibre ammunition loading facility in North America”. The site should be fully operational by September 2029.

CSG also expanded into the Unmanned Aerial Systems sector by acquiring a majority of MUST Solutions, a Serbian producer of propulsion systems for drones, while CSG’s arm Excalibur Army launched domestic production of artillery shells in Ukraine, which is now the Czech group’s second-largest market.

It also expanded ammunition production lines on its home markets in Czechia and Slovakia, and its control of The Kinetic Group in the US and Italian Fiocchi Munizioni, made CSG one of the world's largest producers of small caliber ammunition.

Political controversies 

The company has come a long way from the controversy back in 2018, when CSG founder Jaroslav Strnad was strongly criticised by local liberals for openly supporting nationalist ex-president Miloš Zeman. With their CZK2mn donation, Jaroslav Strnad and his controversial business partner, Slovak-Russian Alexey Beliayev, were among the first sponsors in the campaign to re-elect Zeman, who spent much of his two tenures as Czech president pushing the country’s foreign policy and local businesses to turn eastward towards Moscow and Beijing.

There was also speculation that PR concerns were behind Jaroslav’s son Michal Strnad, who oversaw the Amsterdam IPO, after succeeding his father as CSG’s CEO. 

Further controversies emerged over the purchase of formerly state-owned factories in Serbia and North Macedonia, as reported by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). In 2023, CSG lost a court case in the US state of Delaware and was ordered to pay $3.4mn in damages to American company SARN after breaching a contract according to which SARN was supposed to get a 25% share in the Czech radar company Retia. SARN argued in court that Retia’s value was damaged as a result of CSG’s sponsoring of Zeman. 

But when Putin launched the full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Strnads got the opportunity to ride the unprecedented wave of defence spending.

This was reflected in the IPO. Since January 20, CSG has offered €3.3bn in stock for institutional investors with a possible increase to €3.8bn, the Czech Press Agency (CTK) and international media reported. Of the €3.3bn offering, €750mn is allocated for new stocks and approximately €2.6bn sold by CSG's main shareholder, CSG FIN.

As bne IntelliNews covered previously, main investors Artisan Partners, Black Rock and Qatar Investment Authority have committed to €900mn already. CSG is expected to offer 15.2% of stock at €25 per stock, which would target a valuation of approximately €25bn, according to media reports.