Who are the brokers of the billionaires on the Stock Exchange?

The transactions conducted on the Bucharest Stock Exchange this year, after the 2008 collapse of the market, have revealed who the most powerful stock market investors are that have got the money and the intuition to take advantage of the opportunities arisen, but also who their brokers are that helped them gain millions of euros are.

Dan Adamescu, Alexandru Ion Tiriac or the Cristescu brothers are among the investors who bet on ailing companies on the Stock Exchange at the beginning of the year, getting into the spotlight through their investments.

The Cristescu brothers, two of the most powerful Romanian industrialists, early this year bet on the shares of drilling company Dafora Medias (DAFR), when the share price had reached less than 10% of the peak of 2007. Meanwhile, the shares of the two brothers have gone up four times, which translates into about one million-euro profit. The two are currently working with Broker Cluj.

"We used to work with Investco Bucuresti, which merged with Broker Cluj, and are now working with Broker Cluj. We were friends with Investco's owner and this is really important. We've been their clients for fifteen years. We've known Ciprian Zah for 18 years and were he to move to another brokerage firm, we would go with him. Traditional relationships really matter. We discuss together about the progression of the market, about what is on the rise or going down, and make decisions together," Marius Cristescu told ZF.

Dan Adamescu, one of the real estate moguls of Bucharest made his first major successful investment on the Bucharest Stock Exchange in November 2008 when he bought 15% in Intercontinental (RCHI) for 3.5 million euros. He went on to buy about 17.5% in electrical and IT retailer Flamingo International (FLA) for about 1 million euros at the beginning of the year, with the acquisitions conducted through KBC Securities brokerage firm.

Alexandru Ion Tiriac, son of businessman Ion Tiriac, in turn stood out as an investor on the Stock Exchange, after having bought 5% in Flamingo. Tiriac Jr. is works with Unicredit CA IB Securities, part of the Unicredit Tiriac Bank, partly owned by his father.