Billionaire sacked by his children as family feud spills over

8 hours ago 4

By Maciej Martewicz and Konrad Krasuski

July 24, 2025 — 6.38am

In Poland, one of the country’s biggest media businesses is embroiled in a rapidly escalating family dispute that’s playing out like a real-life version of the hit television show Succession.

The saga at Cyfrowy Polsat SA, which has been running for months, ramped up on Tuesday when the company dismissed its billionaire founder Zygmunt Solorz as well as its chief executive.

Zigmunt Solorz, founder of Cyrfowy Polsat, with his wife Justyna Kulka.

The feud has pitted 68-year-old Solorz against his children, with control of the business at the heart of the matter. There have been lawsuits and attempts by Solorz to remove his sons from the company, while the children have clashed with Solorz’s new wife, an employee whom he married in 2024.

There have also been concerns about Solorz’s health and his capacity to make business decisions.

It has echoes of the blackly comic HBO series Succession, which covered the warring members of a family media dynasty, led by an ageing, yet dominant, patriarch.

Self-made man

Self-made Solorz set up Polsat — Poland’s first privately owned television network — more than three decades ago, subsequently expanding into mobile telephony and power production, at times borrowing huge sums to fund acquisitions. The company has a market value of about 10.3 billion zloty ($4.3 billion).

The family dispute started last year, when he and his children discussed succession. At the time, the children also expressed their concern over his new wife, Justyna Kulka.

Their father agreed to trigger a transfer of his two Liechtenstein-registered foundations, which effectively control his business empire, to them. Several days later, he changed his mind.

The children also wrote a letter to the managers of family-owned businesses warning them against taking part in any potential takeover attempts. They said they were having difficulty contacting their father and were in conflict with Kulka.

Then, in May, after Solorz tried to remove his sons from his companies, a Liechtenstein court dismissed a lawsuit by him attempting to block the succession of the foundation to the children. His lawyer, Radoslaw Kwasnicki, said the billionaire is appealing the ruling.

Now, Solorz is out, the latest development in a saga that’s gripped the Polish public. As the drama has ensued, Cyfrowy shares have lagged the broader Polish market. They’ve gained less than half as much as the benchmark WIG20 index, which is up 34 per cent this year.

The stock fell 2.8 per cent on Tuesday.

Investors look at the conflict “mainly from the perspective of operational risks” for a company that has started to improve results in the past quarters, according to Piotr Raciborski, an analyst at Wood & Co. in Warsaw.

Jaroslaw Kolkowski, a lawyer representing TiVi, told Bloomberg News that the dismissals this week were made “to limit the risk of transferring assets out of the family foundation.”

The dispute is playing out like a real-life version of the hit television show ‘Succession.’

Separately, TiVi said in a statement published by Cyfrowy Polsat that it “recognises and appreciates the indisputable contributions” of Solorz and former CEO Miroslaw Blaszczyk, and that it decided to dismiss them to boost supervision over key assets.

“The Foundation’s cornerstone obligation is to protect its assets, and the above changes were indispensable to properly discharge said obligation,” TiVi said. It added it will “monitor the situation and take additional decisions when necessary.”

Solorz’s lawyer Radoslaw Kwiasnicki told PAP news agency that the businessman will appeal the “unlawful” dismissal, calling it “merely a temporary situation.”

The billionaire rarely appears in public, but last year took part in a shareholder meeting via a videolink from an undisclosed location. His performance there increased concerns over his health, but his aides have repeatedly rejected such speculation.

Kwasnicki told daily Puls Biznesu last month that Solorz was in “great shape” and normally works long hours, including on new business ventures.

For those watching the story unfold, the general view is there is more to go before any resolution.

“If personnel changes ultimately lead to some clearer succession scenario, this will be received positively,” Wood & Co.’s Raciborski said. “Still, investors will await the next legal steps from both sides to assess the situation more clearly.”

Bloomberg

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