Four months ago, Michal Strnad cashed out €2.55 billion in Europe's largest-ever defense IPO. The 33-year-old Czech billionaire is now putting that money to work in companies that have nothing to do with weapons - a new private investment firm with up to €10 billion in firepower.
In January 2026, Strnad took his company Czechoslovak Group, or CSG, public on Euronext Amsterdam, where the IPO raised €3.3 billion - the largest sale ever for a pure-play defense company.
Strnad personally pocketed €2.55 billion from the offering, while the rest went to fund CSG's growth and pay down debt.
CSG is Europe's second-largest supplier of medium and large-caliber ammunition, and it's the world's biggest small-caliber ammunition maker.
His net worth jumped to roughly $37 billion after the IPO, putting him among the youngest billionaires in Europe.
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Strnad told Bloomberg the new firm will invest only in non-defense businesses, since he wants to avoid any conflict of interest with the company he still runs.
The new firm will target deals across Europe and the United States.
Strnad said his team is already lined up and that they have "a pipeline of dozens of opportunities."
The €10 billion ceiling makes this one of the larger family offices in Europe by raw firepower, since most family offices in the region run portfolios well below the €1 billion mark.
By keeping the new firm separate from CSG, Strnad also avoids the kind of regulatory and political scrutiny that defense-linked acquirers tend to attract across the European Union.
Private investment vehicles run by single wealthy families have grown sharply over the past five years, as billionaires use them to take direct stakes in companies without the disclosure rules attached to public funds.
Strnad's firm is unusual for its scale and its US focus, since most European family offices keep their bets close to home.
The push into US deals also gives him exposure to a market with deeper private capital pools and faster-growing technology companies than what is available in central Europe.
Strnad has not named any specific targets yet, and sector picks will signal where one of Europe's newest private investment giants thinks the smart money is going.
Energy, infrastructure and software are the most likely first stops based on the broader family-office playbook.
The first deal will tell you the rest.
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