Born: June 24, 1950, in Bydgoszcz, Poland
Summary. In 2006 ranked 756 among The World Richest People by Forbes with an estimated net worth of US$1 billion. In 2007 Polish Forbes ranked him 9th among polish businessmen estimating his fortune, after divorce with his wife Grazyna, at PLN 3.2 billion.
Early days. Kulczyk graduated in 1968 from the Sniadeckis Memorial Liceum (Senior high school) in Bydgoszcz. Kulczyk is a law graduate of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan as well as a graduate of foreign trade at the Academy of Economics in Poznan. He holds a 1975 PhD in international law at the Western Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Business activities. His business activities are a continuation of a family business tradition into the third generation. His father set up three companies after WW2, all of which were taken over by the communist state. In 1981, Kulczyk set up Interkulpol, one of the first companies with foreign capital in Poland. In 1988 he established the Kulczyk Tradex company, which was the only official dealer of Volkswagen and Audi in Poland. The company's "big deal", which made Kulczyk one of the richest people in Poland, was a contract which sold more than 1000 vehicles to the Polish Police in 1992. The contract was given to Kulczyk Tradex without formal public tender, which was investigated later by the public prosecutors office. It is worth noting that at the moment there was no other company in the Polish market that could supply that amount of cars. Material assets of Kulczyk Holding S.A., investment vehicle set up by Kulczyk in 1991 include minority stake in toll-road concessionary Autostrada Wielkopolska S.A. In 1993 another company established by Kulczyk, Euro Agro Centrum, bought from the Polish government 51% of the Browary Wielkopolskie SA, one of the largest brewery companies in Poland. In 1995 South African Breweries acquired controlling stake in Kulczyk's brewery assets. Reportedly Kulczyk continues to hold minority stake in the business, now top two in Poland with over 30% market share, alongside SABMiller. In the last 10 years Kulczyk held sizeable stakes in number of companies including PTC Era mobile operator, TPSA Polish incumbent telecom ( later sold to France Telecom), national oil refining and marketing PKN Orlen, TUiRWarta insurance and PTE Dom pension fund. From 2005 Kulczyk lives in London. In 2006 he divorced his wife, Grazyna, who now owns Kulczyk�s domestic possessions. He is now the President of Kulczyk Holding which is the member of an international investment group founded in 2007. His new company, owns 13,2 % Aurelian Oil & Gas and 39 % Loon Energy. In 2008 he invested in building a group of office buildings in Dubai and he plans to build in Warsaw a Kulczyk Tower supposedly one of the tallest skyscrapers in continental Europe.
Investigation . Jan Kulczyk was questioned by the parliamentary commission in the context of the PKN Orlen investigation (fall 2004). He missed the call to show up at the commission proceedings formally due to undergoing medical treatment in the US and then in London. The investigation commission proved that Jan Kulczyk had a meeting with Wladimir Alganov, a former KGB resident in Poland, on September 2004 in Vienna. Wladimir Alganov is actually a top ranking manager of Russia's Lukoil company. He also had a meeting with Roman Giertych at Jasna Gora.In a written statement Jan Kulczyk announced that he would like to be questioned abroad, as he feared for his safety in Poland. He expressed regret that politics makes it hard to do business in Poland, and that members of the commission engage in personal intimidation. In particular, he singled out Roman Giertych as a commission member who places "politics above the truth and the law". However, he later relented and decided to come back to Poland, to be questioned by the commission. His involvement with the KGB agents may be explained by the fact that the beginnings of his business activities are rooted in the period of communist rule in Poland. In this system big enterprise was not allowed. Small business dealing with local markets were however allowed but couldn�t been grown into bigger, franchises for example. Kulczyk was four times interrogated by the prosecutor�s office as witness, last time in April 2008. The prosecutor decided to discontinue the investigation because of lack of evidence.
Other activities. He is a co-founder of Polish Business Council and of Polish-German Indutrial-Trade Bureau. He is also the president of the Council for Support of Scientific Research at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, member of the Council of National Museum in Poznan, Koscielna Rada Gospodarcza, the International Council of Governors, Peres Center for Peace, and also the Council of European Integration. In 1992 he got Kisiel Prize and in 2007 he became the President of the International Green Cross.
Based on an article that appears in Wikipedia (with modifications):
Wikipedia
Wikipedia (in Polish)
This is the "GNU Free Documentation License" reference article from the English Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
Other sources:
Forbes
Pudelek (in Polish)
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