Česky
So why are you in the healthcare business?
A friend of mine happened to sell me a stake in a medical center. I liked it and it was doing well. But I couldn't do more than one business at a time. I chose healthcare and have been doing it for almost 20 years now.
Are you successful at it?
That depends on what success is. If it's by the number of thank you letters we get every day from patients and their families, then we're successful. In terms of the way our group companies operate economically, we have minimal credit, and employee salaries are above average. The quality of our facilities is the absolute top in the country and perhaps even in Central Europe.
In June it was ten years since you bought the hospitals in Hořovice and Beroun. How much did you invest in them? What was the source of these investments?
In total, more than two and a half billion crowns. Part of the money was from previous business. Most of the investments came from the whole group. It makes 200 million profit a year. All the profit for all the years has been reinvested back into our hospitals. I have not received a salary or dividend for the entire time I have owned them. I don't have a company phone or a car. In addition, the entire management is not employed by the company that owns the hospitals.
So who pays them?
Other companies in our group. Besides, we have no foreign consultants. We've never even bought software abroad. Nor have we diverted any funds to exotic destinations.
What was the biggest investment of the two and a half billion that went into the hospitals in Hořovice and Beroun?
Mainly infrastructure. The hospitals were very worn out when we took them over. We did a complete reconstruction - new utilities, boiler rooms, heating, furniture... Only the perimeter walls remained and not all of them. We built new car parks at both hospitals. In Hořovice, we gave it the final approval last week (Thursday, December 22). A large sum went into computer equipment and networks. In Hořovice 10 years ago there were three computers for the whole hospital. Now we have state-of-the-art networks from Cisco. All the servers are from world-class companies. And it's still not over.
What are your plans for the next ten years?
I don't have plans that long. I have realistic plans for the next three years. I have to invest 600 million in Hořovice, 200 million in Beroun and another 150 million in the cancer centre in Pardubice.
A facility? Or will you expand?
In technology. And also in buildings. In Hořovice, we'll expand the number of operating theatres to nine. We'll increase the capacity of beds in the A&E department from 14 to 24. We will expand diagnostics - for example, new X-ray, CT and other ultrasound machines. A brand new central reception will be built. We will expand sterilization. We will add about 80 aftercare beds and 64 acute care beds.
Will you still have space for this in the Hořovice area?
The land is large. We will build another part behind the existing buildings - as a continuation. We are now completing a new OCHRIP pavilion for children, and this year we built a new corporate nursery building in Hořovice, which has been operating since September. We are expanding the outpatient clinic in the building where the headquarters is located. We have started building a central archive of over 1,000 square meters.
And in Beroun?
We're building two new operating theatres. A new morgue is planned. I don't count on us actually starting the construction of mental rehabilitation pavilions yet. It was a roughly billion-dollar investment where we applied for a 40 percent subsidy from IROP. All the evaluators who decided on the allocation rejected our project.
Why?
Maybe the name bothered them. Or maybe they were surprised by the level of service and the facility itself. We're used to it. In the past, they disagreed with building an oncology centre in Pardubice, and yet it works. Now it's the third largest in the country and we're only 300 procedures away from second. Moreover, we built everything without subsidies, state or regional support. One of the few people who supports us is the mayor in Hořovice.
With the experience you have now, would you have started a healthcare business twenty years ago?
Yes.
You would?
If it were easy, everyone would do it. For all the doubts about us and our intentions, we've proved we're not incompetent.
You've turned down several offers to buy your hospitals in the past. What would make you change your mind?
What we're doing is not the work of a generation. If I saw that my daughters were not interested in continuing, then I would consider selling. But my older daughter wants to continue.
What's your motto in life?
It's fluid. It's always bothered me that people who have reached a certain financial level think they've gotten wise at the same time. That's not true for me. It amuses me when I read an interview with someone who has gotten rich or made a career, I know them well, and they start spouting off a motto. Wealth does not automatically bring wisdom. That's not how it works.
What should a person, regardless of their position, never forget?
His roots.
What are yours?
I'm a village boy. My father was a labourer. My mother was a seamstress. I first saw electricity when I was seven and a half. At school, we studied and wrote under a kerosene lamp. It seems ridiculous to me to play blue blood and that I am suddenly someone else just because I have reached a certain economic level. One should not forget one's roots. And to be reminded of them regularly.
How do you remind yourself?
In my office, among the framed stocks and college diplomas, I hung a picture of a goat I used to herd in my village as a boy. Come over there and play the rich celebrity, the neighbors wouldn't give me coffee. We raise our children in the same spirit. They never went to private school. I don't want them to think they're something more just because I have companies that are doing well.
Sotirios Zavalianis (52)
Greek-born businessman, came to the former Czechoslovakia in the 1980s to study. Eventually he started his business and started a family here. After several successful investments in health services, he privatised the hospitals in Beroun and Hořovice in June 2007. He immediately embarked on extensive renovations. The Hořovice maternity hospital was one of the first to be renovated. Last year, a record 1,701 babies were born there and it is currently the largest maternity hospital in the Central Bohemia region. The Hořovice neonatology (neonatal ward) has had an intensive care unit with the status of a perinatology centre since 2014. It provides not only standard, but also resuscitation and intensive care for children born prematurely. Comparable centres are mostly located in university and regional hospitals, except in Prague. The first OCHRIP (chronic resuscitation and intensive care unit) for children in the Czech Republic was opened in Hořovice. A new pavilion with 13 additional beds is currently being completed for this department. Since September this year, there has been a kindergarten for the children of employees in a new building costing 17 million.
The most modern rehabilitation centre in the Czech Republic was completed in Beroun two years ago. In three interconnected pavilions with 150 beds, a swimming pool, gym, fitness room, sauna, etc., mainly the acute phase of rehabilitation after discharge from acute hospital care takes place here.
The Hořovice and Beroun hospitals, together with the Multiscan Oncology Centre in Pardubice, earned CZK 94 million last year. All three facilities increased sales. The Hořovice hospital by 8.5 percent to 623 million. Multiscan and Jessenia, which operates the Beroun hospital, earned 10 percent more, 499 and 385 million respectively. This year, Zavalianis' group expects growth of six to twelve percent.
Last month, he merged his companies into Akeso Holding with a total turnover of almost CZK 3 billion.
