Royal Mail’s owner appoints ex-minister Greg Hands as adviser

A former UK trade minister has been appointed as a strategic adviser to Daniel Kretinsky, the Czech billionaire investor who clinched the audacious takeover of Royal Mail’s owner.

Greg Hands, who lost his Chelsea and Fulham seat at last year’s general election, was the minister for trade policy in the last Conservative government and has held several ministerial roles, including for energy and as chief secretary to the Treasury.

Hands will advise EP Group, the conglomerate based in Prague and controlled by Kretinsky, on regulatory and market developments, with a focus on the UK and Germany. He will report directly to Kretinsky, who is known as the “Czech sphinx” for his inscrutable investment approach.

In April, EP Group completed the £3.6 billion acquisition of International Distribution Services (IDS), Royal Mail’s London-listed parent company, after agreeing legally binding undertakings with the Department for Business and Trade. The government has retained a so-called golden share.

Kretinsky has invested fortunes raised from energy assets into food, media, logistics and sports stakes, including J Sainsbury and West Ham United football club. In Germany, EP Group recently took over and delisted the wholesaler Metro.

Kretinsky said: “Greg has unique capabilities for the job, including fluency in German and good Czech, and understands many of our markets very well.”

Hands said: “I have known Daniel Kretinsky for a long time, and I know that EP Group has a strong track record in energy and infrastructure.” He approached the advisory committee on business appointments, which vets external appointments of former ministers.

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Hands met Kretinsky at the business department in January 2023 for what he said was a general meeting about the tycoon’s role as a big investor in the UK. He also approached Kretinsky after the election in July.

The committee said the business department had confirmed that government work on the acquisition of IDS “post dates your time as a minister. Further, you made no policy, regulatory or commercial decisions specific to EP Group while minister of state for trade policy. Therefore, the committee considers the risk this appointment reasonably be perceived as a reward for decisions made, or actions taken in office, is low”.

The committee, though, has recommended a number of restrictions on the appointment. It has advised that Hands should not draw on any privileged information available from his time in ministerial office and for two years not become personally involved in lobbying the government on behalf of EP Group. Hands should also not use contacts in the government and Whitehall to “unfairly advantage” EP Group.

The committee said that Hands had said his suitability for the role is “not principally based on your being a former minister but you being fluent in German and knowledgeable of the key sectors in Germany with which the company engages — energy, logistics, and retail. You can also speak Czech, having studied it at university”.