Is Vítek Even a Billionaire?
In March 2026, Forbes published its annual list of the world's billionaires. Radovan Vítek has been on the list for 12 years.
His Forbes-reported net worth is $7.1 billion, making him the 542nd richest person in the world, according to Forbes, and 6th richest in his native Czech Republic.
His main source of wealth: CPI Property Group, a real estate development and holding companywith more than 600 commercial properties in Europe — worth, CPI claims, €20 billion, minus €13 billion in debt.
Vítek owns roughly 87 percent of CPI.
CPI backs up its claim of gross assets value of €20 billion through appraisals of its office buildings, shopping centers, hotels, and land.
Appraisals Are Opinions, Not Facts
Commercial real estate appraisals are not exact science. They are professional opinions.
Sometimes appraisals can be overly optimistic.
Vítek, as controlling owner, oversaw the hiring of appraisers for CPI. As one would expect from such an arrangement, the numbers came back optimistic.
Muddy Waters, the short-seller firm that has published a series of reports on CPI, argues that the CPI figures came back inflated.
If CPI's appraisals are inflated by, for instance, 33 percent across the portfolio, the company's real value would be €13.4 billion — almost exactly equal to the €13 billion of debt.
And Vítek's 87 percent share of CPI would be worth almost zero, nowhere near the $7.2 billion Forbes credits him with.
The question of whether CPI regularly engaged in a pattern of producing inflated appraisals warrants investigation.
Two examples may prove instructive.
Two Examples — Bubny and Berlin
CPI's land in the Bubny district of Prague comprises 201,000 square meters (50 acres) of industrial-zoned land.
CPI's appraiser, Jones Lang LaSalle, valued the land at €276.9 million. The appraisal used six unidentified comparable land sales to establish a price of €1,378 a square meter, leaving anyone examining the appraisal to rely entirely on the good faith of the appraiser Vítek had hired.
Muddy Waters, which had a financial interest in discrediting CPI, appraised the same land at €138.7 million.
The difference: €138.2 million.
CPI's appraisal is double Muddy Waters'.
In determining which appraisal is closer to market reality, it should be noted that Muddy Waters' appraisal was more transparent. It used Prague's official record of 76 actual sales of similar land in the same district. This produced an average of €690 a square meter, half of what CPI's unidentified six land sites suggested the land was worth.
Another example is CPI's 500,000-square-foot office building at Reuchlinstraße 10-11 in Berlin. CPI valued the building at €199 million.
The company, in its public releases, provided a rendering of the building rather than actual photographs. The rendering shows a building looking pristine and occupied.
Muddy Waters valued the company at €112 million, €87 million less than CPI's appraisal.
Muddy Waters also provided photographs of the actual building. The photos show broken windows, uncleaned graffiti, and empty floors.
Two (out of 200) buildings reveal a €225 million gap between appraisals. CPI's appraisals were 47 percent higher than Muddy Waters'.
Forbes did not appraise any buildings. It took CPI's appraisals at face value.
The Ratings Tell a Story
Two credit rating agencies — Moody's and S&P — downgraded CPI from safe to risky for those considering lending money to the company by purchasing its corporate bonds.
In three and a half years, both of the main investment rating agencies downgraded CPI's bonds from investment grade to junk.
In October 2022, S&P cut CPI from BBB to BBB-.
Two weeks later, Moody's cut CPI from Baa2 to Baa3.
Both grades were the lowest investment rating that still permitted pension, insurance and other institutional investors to purchase CPI's bonds.
In May 2024, S&P cut CPI from BBB- to BB+ — moving it into junk, thereby wiping out a large market of potential investors.
Moody's followed with a downgrade from Baa3 to Ba1, which is also a junk bond rating.
In December 2025, Moody's cut CPI again, from Ba1 to Ba2 - deeper into junk bond status. In April 2026, S&P did the same, from BB+ to BB.
A Reason for the Downgrades
Moody's gave a reason for the downgrades.
For every €1 of interest CPI owes each year, the company earns only about €1.70 from its buildings. CPI pays the interest first — €1. That leaves only 70 cents to pay out taxes and profit.
Too much of the company's income is paid in interest.
A financially healthy company earns €3 for every €1 paid in interest. After paying the interest, €2 remains — enough for taxes and profit, as opposed to 70 cents.
CPI's thin margin suggests it has borrowed too much against its buildings and/or that the buildings are not worth what CPI claims.
CPI has another challenge.
CPI must eventually pay its €13 billion in debt. When a bond comes due, the principal has to be repaid. CPI, because it is not liquid, has to find new bond lenders to replace old bonds. Because of being downgraded into junk by S&P and Moody's, the interest costs on new bonds will be higher, putting further pressure on already-thin profit margins.
The Price of Money
In May 2024, CPI borrowed at 7 percent. In September 2024, 6 percent on a €700 million bond. In October 2025, the company sold £300 million of undated subordinated notes at 8.875 percent.
A financially healthy European real estate company can borrow at four percent.
An 8.875 percent coupon on a company that was investment-grade three years ago is a distressed price, or at least that is how the bond market sees it.
Fire Sale?
Since 2022, CPI has sold more than €4 billion of assets. The Vienna Marriott. A London residential project. The Swiss ski operation at Crans-Montana.
Financially healthy companies do not sell their best assets into a soft market.
On paper, CPI's portfolio has not shrunk by €4 billion, however. CPI bought two large Austrian property companies in 2022 — Immofinanz and S-IMMO — bringing, it claims, billions of euros in new property assets to replace what it sold.
The company still reports the same €20 billion in total assets partly because of new acquisitions, and partly because CPI raised the value of its assets on paper.
There is another indicator that CPI inflates its assets.
For 2025, CPI reported a net profit of €254 million and total assets of €20.2 billion.
This is a return of 1.25 percent.
Financially healthy real estate companies return three or four times that.
A portfolio carrying too much debt, buildings worth less than CPI claims, or both, may be the cause of the very low profit rate.
A Run on the Bank
There is a risk for CPI.
A real estate company of this size and debt can survive only as long as lenders keep lending. If enough lenders lose faith in CPI, they will not lend, or demand interest rates too high to be sustainable.
Every downgrade by Moody's and S&P brings that day closer.
Why must CPI sell?
Because its bonds come due in lumps. A €500 million bond, due in 2026, must be repaid in full on its maturity date. CPI's annual profit cannot cover that. For years, CPI would issue a new bond to pay off the old one.
When CPI fell into junk, cautious lenders stopped buying its bonds. Lenders still willing to buy CPI's bonds now want a much higher rate.
Refinancing has become expensive, and in a bad market, it may not be possible. If CPI cannot refinance, it has only one other way to raise the cash for the next maturing bond: sell buildings quickly.
Who Pays
If CPI should fail, the bondholders get paid last — after the lawyers and administrators who profit from running the bankruptcy, the banks holding mortgages on specific buildings, and the tax authorities.
Among the bondholders are pension funds, insurance companies, and American institutions that bought CPI's dollar-denominated bonds through major US banks when CPI was still investment-grade.
A corporate bankruptcy is, by design, separate from its owner. The company can fail without the owner failing with it.
Vítek has shell companies in Cyprus and Malta. He has entities in Abu Dhabi created after Muddy Waters' first report. A family trust holds CPI shares for his children. During his divorce, he transferred his holdings to his lawyers. He has had assets titled in his mother's name. His French palace at Gordes is held through a Monaco shell.
This series has shown some of his transactions. The Prague land Vítek sold to himself for €20 million and had CPI buy back for €50.9 million — a €30.9 million profit on land he had moved out of CPI and into his own pocket.
The hotels he routed through a London shell and a South African nominee. The yacht he routed through three shell companies in three countries, with CPI paying for it.
The €52 million he had CPI transferred to his son.
The shells and trusts are hard to pierce unless creditors can prove the transfers were made in anticipation of CPI's failure.
Even then the claims must be litigated in foreign courts, against a well-funded defendant, and may take years.
By the time a court orders an asset clawed back, much of the money may have moved to another shell company.
A man who walked a €16 million yacht through three shell companies on the day it was delivered is not a man who will leave the silverware on a sinking ship.
The risk is the bondholders'. The losses, if there are losses, will be theirs.
Vítek will take his "fair" share whether CPI floats on or sinks like a stone in the murky waters of his financial game.
Some questions remains: Is Vitek worth $7.2 billion.
Maybe, if he has siphoned enough assets from CPI into his various shells.
But it is almost certain that CPI is nowhere near as solvent as Forbes assumes.
The challenge for Forbes is its analysts have no way to assess Vitek's holdings in his myriad shell companies, trusts and assets squirreled away through lawyers and nominees who may hold a shell company that owns a shell company that transfers an asset through another shell company and no one is the wiser except one man who may or may not be a billionaire at all.
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