Like godfather, like godson

Someone once joked that Marek Dalík’s business plan for his PR firm New Deal was Mirek Topolanek. Likewise, when Milan Hejl set up AMI Communications in the late 1990s, his business plan was without a doubt Martin Roman.

You do not need to believe all that malicious rubbish about Dalík being a blood relative of Topolanek’s in order to explain the extraordinarily close relations between the two. ‘Duty’ is sufficient. The relationship may be understood as the kind that exists between a godfather and godson, in which favors flow in one direction only. And given the high public position once held by Godfather T, anything more reciprocal would have been unthinkable.

An accountant might like to label as ‘goodwill’ the relationship that Marek Dalík and Milan Hejl enjoy with their respective godfathers. For example, a potential acquirer of AMI, at least before Roman’s Swiss troubles, would surely have been willing to offer a handsome premium over the tangible book value of the company in order to hold onto the ‘goodwill’ that Godfather R represented.

The same applies to Dalík’s New Deal. Godfather T worried only last week that ‘Marek is deciding if he should stay in this country he is so disgusted by the local conditions.’ While entirely understandable from his point of view, I fear the best moment has passed to sell New Deal. If only he had sold before Godfather T made his ‘gay’ remarks in a pair of tight jeans, and had to step down as the boss.

Another helpful example of ‘goodwill’ might be Dutko Worldwide Prague, a limited company in which the current defence minister once held a stake and which he passed on (not sold) to an AMI shareholder before joining Topolanek in government in 2006. From a political (and ethical) point of view, it was the right thing to do if future unpleasantness of the related-party kind was to be avoided. And from a business point of view, there could hardly have been a better time to transfer a stake in a lobbying firm. Actually, Prague Dutko is in liquidation today, which might mean that it wasn’t such a great business move after all, although more likely it points to the fact that its purpose had been achieved.

The lesson from all this is clear: Behind every successful godson there is to be found an attentive godfather. And of course, this is a generational thing. We were all godsons once and with luck, we may all hope to be godfathers too. This begs the question of whose godson Martin Roman might have been when he was starting out ten years ago. No one believes for one moment that he can have risen so far and so fast without at least one. My guess is Godfather K, or 'Kickinagreen’ as his admirers call him.