PRIVATE EQUITY INVESTMENT IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC

New principles, tasks and expectations for the nearest future, as well as upcoming development trends of private equity investments in global economy are mentioned in this paper. Ecological investments of private equity, as for example: alternative power engineering, biotechnologies or any other technologies, regardful to the living environment, appear to replace gradually foregoing investments focusing on information engineering and communication technologies. Attention of private equity funds seems to be paid especially on emerging markets during oncoming decade. Sources, aims and conditions of usage of private equity in Europe are not similar comparing with North America or Asia-Pacific region. While in the North America major-part of equity consists of private sources, Cohesion Funds of the European Community are frequently used for financing of funds in Europe. Consequently private equity is usually used for growth or expansion of a company or for "buy in - buy out" operations, scarcely any investments are focused on start-up and early stage projects in Europe. Recommendations of European Commission and EVCA regarding elimination of obstacles to private equity investments in Europe include: - harmonization of tax and legal rules for private equity investments in the Member States of European Community, - improvement of European tax and legal environments, - move towards greater transparency of tax reporting.