RSBC and the Diocese of České Budějovice Establish a Joint Venture
Named RSBC Consortio, the joint venture will mainly focus on investments into real estate. The company is prepared to invest to the tune of hundreds of millions crowns into real estate projects.
For the RSBC Group, an investment conglomerate specializing in long-term investments into companies in Central and Southeast Europe, the association with the Diocese of České Budějovice has a special importance. "It is a partnership based on shared lasting values. We believe in a conservative approach and in building fair relationships that bring lasting prosperity to all partners," explained RSBC's founder Robert Schönfeld.
For the Diocese of České Budějovice, forging a partnership with a strong investment group is another step on the path to full emancipation from the state. "We hope that a business partnership with an experienced investment group will help us achieve financial self-sustainability following the separation of the church from the state," added David Henzl, Vicar General of the Diocese of České Budějovice.
"A partnership of the church and a private investment group in a joint venture shows that as elsewhere in the world, a nonprofit organization in the Czech Republic can establish long-term cooperation with the financial sector, including a non-bank institution," commented the transaction J&T Bank's Chief Economist Petr Sklenář. According to him, investing into a real estate portfolio is a step in the right direction, away from asset management practices used in the nonprofit sector in the past, which mostly relied on simple financial instruments, bank products in particular.