Professor Michal Mejstřík

Academic posts

Professor Mejstřík has held a number of academic posts as well as having pursued advanced studies at the London School of Economics. He is a professor of banking and corporate finance at Charles University and since 1993 he has been the founding Chairman of Institute of Economic Studies at Charles University, the prestigious economic think tank in Czech Republic. Between June 1991-June 1993 he co-founded and later served as the executive director of Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education, Charles University. He has published over 150 contributions all around the world in the field of corporate finance and financial markets.

Business

EEIP a.s., a cooperation partner of WestLB for investment banking in the Czech Republic, was founded in 1991 by Professor Mejstřík, who has been as the head of the company since then. During the last 12 years, EEIP has been involved in more than 50 M & A and company restructuring deals in CEE including the most visible ones (CKD DS Transport Systems restructuring and sale to Siemens or acquisition of Czech gas sector or purchase of minority stake in Nafta Gbely by RWE Gas). During the last five years EEIP has been ranked among top six M&A advisory firms in the Czech republic (according to Book of Lists issued by Prague Business Journal).

Professor Mejstrik has also been involved in a number of USAID, World Bank and EU consultancy assignments in Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Baltic Republics, Russia, Romania and Bosnia-Hercegovina.

Abstract of the speech:

The corporate governance issues have been the key barrier for enterprise restructuring and development within number of new EU countries. The theoretical notions and assumptions of corporate governance were compared with the typical transition country institutional prerequisites and practise that resulted in the definition of "biased, bivalent form" of corporate governance when one large shareholder acts as one shareholder. It influenced the banking corporate governance failure that resulted in different restructuring profiles of particular types of companies. The foreign controlled companies seem to represent long-term standard behavior with new internal and external contractual architecture that might be partially eroded by the environment with prevailing very incomplete, vague contracts used by number of participants for their individual benefit. Institutional changes following "acqui communitaire", liberal environment for business development and investments with transparent but well-defined enforceable rules and privatization of remaining state banks are seen as a consensual policy point of departure.