CSG addresses Senator Vance concerns about Vista Outdoor unit deal

The Czechoslovak Group, or “CSG,” and CEO Michal Strnad made public an open letter to U.S. Senator J.D. Vance addressing concerns he raised in a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in connection to CSG’s proposed acquisition of Vista Outdoor’s Sporting Products business – recently renamed The Kinetic Group – stating in part: “Senator, with all due respect, your assessment of us was profoundly mistaken. CSG is one of the most important private supporters of the Ukrainian militate effort, a country to which we have supplied much-needed weapon systems dating back to 2018, well before the outbreak of open Russian aggression… We understand that the sale of major producers of small caliber ammunition to a foreign company, even if it is a company from a NATO member state that is a close ally of the U.S., attracts well-deserved attention. In today’s global world, however, it is not important which allied country the buying company is based, but what its track record is and what value it can bring to the American ammunition manufacturers associated in The Kinetic Group… We are familiar with the small caliber ammunition market thanks to the acquisition of a majority stake in Fiocchi, a well-known producer of small caliber ammunition worldwide – which also had to be approved by CFIUS – because this company also operates two production sites in the U.S. We are an industrial group that holds the companies it acquires for the long term and invests in them… But we know the most convincing argument is one you can experience yourself. That’s why we invite you to visit CSG member companies in the U.S. and Europe to experience first-hand who we really are.”