Friday

29th Mar 2024

Poland's richest entrepreneur dies

  • A long and canny business career (Photo: Kulczyk Investments)

Poland lost its richest businessman, philanthropist and person strongly associated with the country’s transformation from Communism to the market economy on Wednesday (30 July) when Jan Kulczyk died after complications following minor heart surgery.

Kulczyk started on his path to fortune as an intermediary in the privatization of the largest state-owned companies in the 1990s.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

Today his energy and infrastructure company has assets on five continents. His personal wealth has been estimated by Forbes at €3.62 billion.

Kulczyk started his business while Poland was still under communist rule, investing money from his father.

His first company Interkulpol imported used agricultural machinery from Germany to Poland. A few years later he became the first authorised Volkswagen dealer and earned his first big money selling 3,000 cars to the security services.

He had contacts, good business sense and spoke several languages – something that made him stand out in the beginning of the 1990s.

These skills enabled him to become involved in privatization; buying shares of state-owned companies and then participating in selling them to foreign investors.

The major deals included the buying of minority stakes in Tyskie brewery, insurer Warta and national telecom provider Telekomunikacja Polska SA which he later sold to huge players like France Telekom or SABMiller PLC.

This earned him both a lot of money as well as accusations that he was selling off national assets.

Political controversies

The political climate around him changed in 2002 amid an investigation into the malfunctioning of the biggest state oil company, PKN Orlen.

The investigation revealed that Kulczyk’s influence in the company was far greater than his five-percent share warranted.

He became a symbol of the too-close relationships between business and politics and a central character in rightist media conspiracy theories.

Politicians became more hesitant to make deals with his company so he started to look for business opportunities abroad and became involved into oil exploration in Africa, South America and Asia. Soon after he was doing businesses with India’s richest man Lakshmi Mittal.

Today Kulczyk’s investment vehicle, Kulczyk Investments, is led by Kulczyk’s son, 34-year old Sebastian, who took over the business in 2013.

Kulczyk’s latest idea was to invest into the modernisation of Ukrainian energy plants to sell cheap Polish coal to Ukraine and then buy cheap Ukrainian electric power.

He claimed it would be a win-win situation: Poland helps Ukraine with modernisation and gets cheap energy in return.

Polish stock exchange reacted strongly to the news of Kulczyk’s death. Shares in his chemistry company Ciech fell by 5.3 percent; shares in Serinus Energy by 2.2 percent.

The philanthropist

Kulczyk was also well known as a philanthropist funding Polish sport, young people’s education, culture and heritage.

A 20-million-zloty donation allowed the Warsaw-based Museum of the history of Polish Jews to be finished.

“He was a great entrepreneur with successes in Poland and abroad. It is impossible to write an honest history of Polish transformation without mentioning his involvement,” said Leszek Balcerowicz, Poland’s first post-communist finance minister.

“He is irreplaceable,” said Lech Walesa, a former president and hero of the of the Solidarity resistance movement.

Poland: No paradise for migrants

Poland is to accept 2,000 migrants under an EU plan, fewer than the EU commission wanted but more than most Poles are willing to accept.

Ukraine slams grain trade restrictions at EU summit

Restrictions on Ukrainian agricultural exports to the EU could translate into military losses in their bid to stop Russia's war, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky warned EU leaders during their summit in Brussels on Thursday.

Difficult talks ahead on financing new EU defence spending

With the war in Ukraine showing no signs of ending any time soon, EU leaders will meet in Brussels on Thursday and Friday (21 and 22 March) to discuss how to boost the defence capabilities of Ukraine and of the bloc itself.

Opinion

Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Rather than assuming a pro-European Labour government in London will automatically open doors in Brussels, the Labour party needs to consider what it may be able to offer to incentivise EU leaders to factor the UK into their defence thinking.

Latest News

  1. Kenyan traders react angrily to proposed EU clothes ban
  2. Lawyer suing Frontex takes aim at 'antagonistic' judges
  3. Orban's Fidesz faces low-polling jitters ahead of EU election
  4. German bank freezes account of Jewish peace group
  5. EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania
  6. 'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told
  7. Moscow's terror attack, security and Gaza
  8. Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsThis autumn Europalia arts festival is all about GEORGIA!
  2. UNOPSFostering health system resilience in fragile and conflict-affected countries
  3. European Citizen's InitiativeThe European Commission launches the ‘ImagineEU’ competition for secondary school students in the EU.
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersThe Nordic Region is stepping up its efforts to reduce food waste
  5. UNOPSUNOPS begins works under EU-funded project to repair schools in Ukraine
  6. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsGeorgia effectively prevents sanctions evasion against Russia – confirm EU, UK, USA

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us