Capitalism has not changed the owner of Interagro in the least bit, "other than the fact that I got somewhat older." Briefly going back over those years, he does not see anything that he might have had when he was 27 and he does not have now or the other way around. However, the fifteen companies he runs, the 9,000 employees that depend on his decisions completely and the total business of almost one billion euros are pieces of a puzzle he managed to put together in time.
He has been working in the chemical industry all his life, first for the state, then for himself, especially since he has made quite a lot of money from his job.
Taking advantage of Law 96/1990, which sought to attract foreign investments in Romania exempting entrepreneurs from payment of taxes for four years, Niculae found a Turkish partner with whom he started Interaction, a company involved in chemical products trade. A few months later, the partner, who had another business on the side, decided to withdraw.
For four years Interaction was fully tax exempt so money started to pour in. The capital was reinvested, the company founder says. All the money he found in the bank he invested in buying chemical fertilisers from chemical plants.
To be able to take advantage of the fiscal incentives for a longer period of time, he came up with an idea that extended it by two years: he set up Interagro together with his parents and a business associate from the UK. The new company continued what Interaction started and did not pay profit tax for two years, in its position as Romanian-English company.
The privatisation law, which allowed the state to sell companies, including chemical plants was maybe the best business of Ioan Niculae, even though the start was not as good as he thought
After a failed attempt to buy Amonil Slobozia, Niculae managed to buy 51% in Astra Romana Ploiesti refinery for 16 million dollars, which would later turn out to be worth every penny.
In 1994 he opened the first wheat mill in his native village. Since he did not have anywhere to buy wheat from, he started to rent land and buy equipment, reaching 50,000 hectares at the moment, 12,000 hectares of which owned by the company.
In 1998 he found another opportunity he could not miss: Asirom, which he got for 21 million dollars. In 2007, when Interagro sold its stake in this business, it got 86 million dollars, which were invested in the group's chemical plants.
After a year of fat profits, 2009 started with a global financial crisis that upset all Interagro's owner's plans.
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