Milan Mandarić

Milan Mandarić

Milan Mandarić ( Cyrillic  Милан Мандарић ; born September 5, 1938 in Vrebac in the Lika , Yugoslavia , now Croatia ) is a Serbian - American businessman and multimillionaire.

Life

Growing up in Novi Sad , he took over his father's machine trade at the age of 21 and made it into the largest private company in what was then Yugoslavia in just five years . When Tito's government began to make life difficult for the entrepreneur, he emigrated to the USA in 1969. There he founded the Lika Corporation, which after five years was to become the largest manufacturer of computer components in the USA. Mandarić then moved with other pioneers to the Bay of San Francisco and was one of the co-founders of the high-tech center Silicon Valley .

In 1980 he sold Lika to the computer company Tandy and founded the telecommunications equipment supplier Sanmina , which today is one of the world's largest contract manufacturers alongside Flextronics and Tyco . In the early 1990s, Mandarić also took a stake in the investment company Behrman Capital.

From 1999 to 2006, the football-loving businessman was president and owner of the English football club Portsmouth FC , which he sold in two installments in 2006 to the Russian-French-Israeli businessman Alexandre Gaydamak .

Since February 2007 he has been president and majority shareholder of the English football club Leicester City .

Mandarić was arrested on 28 November 2007 as part of an investigation into suspected corruption and fraud in connection with his role as chairman of Portsmouth FC in 2005 and released the next day.