New owner of Hotel Prague wants to build apartments instead of a hotel

Prague - The Cypriot company Maraflex, which purchased Hotel Praha, wants to build residential apartments instead of the hotel. This was stated today by Maraflex, owned by entrepreneur František Savov.
    "The hotel market in Prague is oversaturated. The land on which the former hotel stands deserves new use. We have a very concrete vision of modern residential housing here," said Maraflex's director Petr Novák.
    Maraflex added that the hotel was built so generously during the previous regime that its operation is not economically sustainable. Whether the new owner will demolish the hotel building or just renovate it is currently uncertain. Both options are reportedly on the table.
     Maraflex wants to position itself in the future as an investment fund. It intends to purchase so-called distressed assets, where the original property owners want to sell quickly for various reasons and are willing to accept a reduced price.
    According to Hospodářské noviny, František Savov (40) is a shareholder of the company Harvestor Limited based in Cyprus, which controls the Czech Budějovice brewery Samson. According to the newspaper, Harvestor last year divided the municipal brewery into a separate joint-stock company Brewery Samson, which took over the assets, technology, and employees of the original brewery and which still belongs to Harvestor, and a residual company which retained the trademarks and a small piece of land with a water source that was purchased by the American brewery giant Anheuser-Busch. Anheuser-Busch is involved in protracted trademark disputes primarily with the Budvar brewery. According to some speculation, by purchasing parts of Samson, the Americans opened the way for a potential privatization of the national enterprise Budějovický Budvar.
     Savov is also reported to control the publishing house Mladá Fronta and publishes several periodicals such as the daily E15 and magazines Euro, Profit, Lidé a Země, Strategie, Sluníčko, or Mateřídouška.
     The entrepreneur was previously associated with dealings around the assets of the former Socialist Youth Union. "Savov was involved with the plundered assets of the union, which were managed by the Fund for Children and Youth. He acquired the publishing house Mladá Fronta below market value and in an auction that took place despite the ban from then-Minister of Finance Jiří Rusnok. Savov's name is also associated with other companies that acquired assets from the former SSM below market value," wrote Hospodářské noviny in May 2010.
    Savov was also previously a witness in the investigation of the case involving the disappearance of 500 million from the Czech Consolidation Agency (ČKA).