Nine Romanian billionaires hold companies worth 550m euros on Stock Exchange

The nine richest Romanian businessmen on the Stock Exchange have a fortune put at over half a billion euros on the Romanian market in more than 60 listed companies. Their fortune accounts for just 4,2% of the Stock Exchange capitalisation, which stands at 13 billion euros. However, none of them came to the Stock Exchange willingly, but took over companies that had already been listed, especially on the RASDAQ market, where companies were privatised via MEBO (Management and Employee Buyouts) over 10 years ago. A portion of the companies were taken over via privatisation programmes or later, when the companies were experiencing problems because of weak management. Some of the Romanian businesspeople became aware in time that they could make good money on the Stock Exchange and took advantage of the booming market in 2007-2008 to raise millions of euros from shareholders. The major businessmen, such as Ion Ţiriac, Dinu Patriciu and Gheorghe Copos keep away from the Stock Exchange because they do not want investors rummaging through their records and analysts going into too many details. Romania's millionaires also stay away from the Stock Exchange because of recent scandals started by several minority shareholders who dragged the companies into dozens of court cases that tend to stretch out for several years. The Stock Exchange has, however, made a few millionaires. One such example is Cătălin Chelu, who first became a millionaire from SIF (Financial Investment Companies) investments, and then expanded his business, and acquired tens of companies he uses as investment vehicles.

The nine billionaires are as follows: Cătălin Chelu (14 companies - 126 million RON), Cristescu brothers (8 companies - 648 million RON), Ştefan Vuza (7 companies - 281 million RON), Ilie Carabulea (6 companies - 267 million RON), Gheorghe Călburean (5 companies - 337 million RON), Ovidiu Tender (5 companies - 228 million RON), Constantin Boromiz (5 companies - 110 million RON), Cristian Burci (4 companies worth 80.4 million RON), Dan Adamescu (2 companies worth 295 million RON).