The Czech Republic does not have a rosy reputation for its past treatment of small or minority shareholders. Many have been treated poorly when ‘squeezed out’ by the majority owners. And the moves by PPF, the majority owner of telecoms giant O2, has raised suspicions they are getting a raw deal again. The general director of the Prague Stock Exchange protested in Hospodářské noviny that PPF’s buyout bid to remaining O2 shareholders last year was so administratively complicated that many could not take it up.
