Dan Adamescu: It's time we thought in Romanian in business

Few of the 40,000 people coming daily to the most visited shopping centre of Bucharest, Unirea Shopping Centre, know its owner also holds Astra insurer, Romania Libera newspaper, four Praktiker stores or Rex hotel in Mamaia.

While he has 3,000 employees and handles 400m-euro annual turnover through his group, businessman Dan Adamescu is little known. His first photo appeared in Ziarul Financiar in 2001, right after the takeover from the state of Astra insurer.

In one of his few interviews, Dan Adamescu confesses he has preferred to stay away from politics and mass media after 1997-1998.

Adamescu, one of the few people who are now buying and saying he is interested in good businesses, made his first money in Germany before of '89, as a representative of Japanese electronics producers for Eastern Europe. In Romania, after 1990, he has invested in constructions, the media and created the first office building in Bucharest, Modern Business Center, the current BSE headquarters.

Before leaving for Germany, in 1978, he worked with the Trade Ministry. "(...) I started as a simple intern, then I became head of office and department head," Adamescu recalls.

In 1987, he got an approval to leave for Germany, to have surgery. "There, I started doing business. I was the exclusive representative for CEE of some Japanese technology producers". "I had 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 put at 20-30m euros".

The first operations in Romania were in the field of constructions. Subsequently, the group included Astra insurer, Unirea Shopping Center, Rex hotel of Mamaia and this year the group took over a significant stake in Flamingo IT retailer.

"Now it's time we thought in Romanian in business as this crisis showed us how important the nationality of capital is. We must have solid Romanian-held firms in the next 10-20 years; we cannot afford to remain a European colony (...)", Adamescu said.