Few of the 40,000 people coming daily to the most visitedshopping centre of Bucharest, Unirea Shopping Centre, know itsowner also holds Astra insurer, Romania Libera newspaper, fourPraktiker stores or Rex hotel in Mamaia.
While he has 3,000 employees and handles 400m-euro annualturnover through his group, businessman Dan Adamescu is littleknown. His first photo appeared in Ziarul Financiar in 2001, rightafter the takeover from the state of Astra insurer.
In one of his few interviews, Dan Adamescu confesses he haspreferred to stay away from politics and mass media after1997-1998.
Adamescu, one of the few people who are now buying and saying heis interested in good businesses, made his first money in Germanybefore of '89, as a representative of Japanese electronicsproducers for Eastern Europe. In Romania, after 1990, he hasinvested in constructions, the media and created the first officebuilding in Bucharest, Modern Business Center, the current BSEheadquarters.
Before leaving for Germany, in 1978, he worked with the TradeMinistry. "(...) I started as a simple intern, then I became headof office and department head," Adamescu recalls.
In 1987, he got an approval to leave for Germany, to havesurgery. "There, I started doing business. I was the exclusiverepresentative for CEE of some Japanese technology producers". "Ihad come to reach turnover worth 60m German marks and 12m profit.It was a Mercedes as a business. I liquidated it in the '90s,though. We now have operations in Germany in three cities:buildings, land and industrial and retail parks, which can be putat 20-30m euros".
The first operations in Romania were in the field ofconstructions. Subsequently, the group included Astra insurer,Unirea Shopping Center, Rex hotel of Mamaia and this year the grouptook over a significant stake in Flamingo IT retailer.
"Now it's time we thought in Romanian in business as this crisisshowed us how important the nationality of capital is. We must havesolid Romanian-held firms in the next 10-20 years; we cannot affordto remain a European colony (...)", Adamescu said.
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