- Jan Kulczyk
Jan Kulczyk, born
June 24 ,1950 , inBydgoszcz , is a prominent Polish businessman. According to theWprost newspaper, his fortune is estimated at PLN 12.5 billion (approximately USD$ 4 billion). In 2006 ranked 756 among The World Richest People byForbes with an estimated net worth of US$1 billion, disappeared from Forbes ranking in 2007 and 2008.Education
Kulczyk is a law graduate of
Adam Mickiewicz University inPoznań as well as a graduate of foreign trade at theUniversity of Economics in Poznań. He holds a Ph.D. in international law. His business activities are a continuation of a family business tradition into the third generation.Possessions
His father set up three companies after WW2, all of which were taken over by the
communist state. In 1981, Kulczyk formedInterkulpol , one of the first companies with foreign capital in Poland. In 1988 he established the Kulczyk Tradex company, which was the only official dealer ofVolkswagen andAudi in Poland. The company's "big deal", which made Kulczyk one of the richest people in Poland, was a contract which sold more than 1000 vehicles to the Polish Police in 1992. The contract was given to Kulczyk Tradex without formal public tender, which was investigated later by the public prosecutors office. It is worth nothing that at the moment the there was no other company in the polish market that could supply that amount of cars and Kulczyk Tradex bet big on been sold distributor for VAG in Poland.In 1993 another company established by Kulczyk, Euro Agro Centrum, bought from the Polish government 51% of the Browary Wielkopolskie SA, one of the largest brewery companies in Poland. In 1995 South African Breweries acquired controlling stake in Kulczyk's brewery assets. Reportedly Kulczyk continues to hold minority stake in the business, now top two in Poland with over 30% market share, alongside
SABMiller .Material assets of
Kulczyk Holding S.A. , investment vehicle set up by Kulczyk in 1991 include minority stake in toll-road concesionary Autostrada Wielkopolska S.A. In the last 10 years Kulczyk held sizeable stakes in number of companies including PTC Era mobile operator (disposed to Elektrim), TPSA Polish incumbent telecom (acquired alongside France Telecom in privatisation deal and later sold to France Telecom), national oil refining and marketingPKN Orlen , Warta insurance (gradually sold to KBC) and PTE Dom pension fund (disposed to KBC).Investigation
Jan Kulczyk is to be questioned by the parliamentary commission in the context of the PKN Orlen investigation (fall 2004). He missed the call to show up at the commission
proceedings formally due to undergoing medical treatment in the US and then inLondon . The investigation commission proved that Jan Kulczyk had a meeting withWladimir Alganov , a formerKGB resident in Poland, on September 2004 inVienna . Wladimir Alganov is actually a top ranking manager of Russia'sLukoil company. In a written statement Jan Kulczyk announced that he would like to be questioned abroad, as he feared for his safety in Poland. He expressed regret that politics makes it hard to do business in Poland, and that members of the commission engage in personal intimidation. In particular, he singled outRoman Giertych as a commission member who places "politics above the truth and the law". However, later relented and decided to come back to Poland, to be questioned by the commission. His involvement with the KGB agents may be exlpaind by the fact that the beginnings of his business activities are rooted in the period of communist rule in Poland. In this system big enterprise were not allowed. Small business dealing with local markets were however allowed but could been grown into bigger, franchises for example. His first company was setup in 1981 but it wasn't until 1989 and the fall of communism that free enterprises were allowed to take off.External links
* http://news.ft.com/cms/s/7f8c16aa-31f4-11d9-97c0-00000e2511c8.html
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