Ryszard Krauze

Ryszard Krauze (* 1956 in Gdynia ) is a Polish entrepreneur whose fortune was estimated by the monthly Forbes in 2008 at 3.5 billion zlotys . The value of the companies in which he holds a stake was estimated in September 2007 at 17 billion złoty and the number of its employees at 4,700 people. Krauze heads the supervisory boards of the companies Bioton , Petrolinvest , Asseco Poland and Polnord . He is also CEO of Prokom Software .

Life

Krauze studied mechanical engineering at the Politechnika Gdańska . In 1987, Krauze founded Prokom (now Prokom Software SA), which was successful with major orders for the computerization of the State Social Insurance ZUS , the Ministry of Defense and Education, the Supreme Control Authority NIK , the state-owned copper and silver mining and smelting group KGHM and the Polish Post . In 1999, Krauze acquired large areas of land in the Wilanów district of Warsaw through Prokom Investments ; the new Miasteczko Wilanów district has been built here since 2002 . In August 2006, Krauze bought shares in four companies from Kazakhstan that hold oil production licenses. The deposits are estimated at 2 billion barrels, which Poland could supply for 13 years. Petrolinvest was created for the discovery and exploitation of the deposits.

Krauze owns two houses in Gdynia in the districts of Kamienna Góra and Orłowo, as well as a tennis court in Ulica Ejsmonda there. He owns the Wyższa Szkoła Międzynarodowych Stosunków Gospodarczych i Politycznych University of Applied Sciences in Gdynia, which he once headed as rector. Krauze is known for his good relations with politicians from various camps. Former secret service employees and politicians have been given management positions in his company: Wojciech Raduchowski-Brochwicz, the former deputy chief of the UOP intelligence service and ex-deputy minister in the interior ministry, now works at Prokom. In addition, Krauze has hired Mieczysław Tarnowski, the former deputy head of the ABW Department of Internal Security under the government of Leszek Miller . Until July 2007 the co-founder of the government special unit GROM , Sławomir Petelicki , sat on the board of directors of Bioton. In 1994 the former opposition activist from Gdansk and Undersecretary of State in the presidential office of Lech Wałęsa , Krzysztof Pusz , was hired by Prokom. The Minister of State for Defense in the Lech Wałęsa Presidential Chancellery , Jacek Merkel , only worked for Krauze on Prokom's supervisory board for one week. His wife, the mathematician Barbara Merkel, has been employed by Prokom since 1997.

He was well acquainted with the injured President Lech Kaczyński . When Kaczyński was still the head of the Supreme Control Authority NIK, Prokom signed a contract with NIK to equip the office with computers.

Holdings

In the company Prokom Investments Krauze owns 66.13%. Prokom holds 5.9% in the private healthcare provider Swissmed , 38.8% in the construction company Polnord and 37.3% in the insulin manufacturer Bioton. There are also holdings in the broker Beskidzki Dom Maklerski and in the Kompap publishing house. Krauze owns 21.5% of the shares from Prokom Software. Prokom Software owns 25% of the engineering company Pol-Aqua , 25.5% of the IT company Asseco Poland (a parent of Asseco Germany, which was founded in Germany in September 2007), and 42.7% of the IT company ABG Spin. and 48.8% in the oil production company Petrolinvest (as of August 2007). Outside the stock exchange, Krauze is the majority owner of the companies Edison SA (in Cracow), Cobidata Poland in Sopot and KPNS and the horticultural company C. Ulrich SA in Gdynia. Krauze is also said to have a stake in the Swiss fund Nihonswi AG, which holds 20.5% in Petrolinvest, 5.7% in Bioton and 11.1% in Polnord.

accusation

On November 17, 2001, the public prosecutor in Katowice read a complaint against billionaire Ryszard Krauze, who allegedly acted to the detriment of his company Prokom Investments. It is about a loan of 3 million złoty that Prokom Investments granted the Warsaw company King & King in September 2006, although it was already in debt to other Krauze companies in the millions. With this, Krauze had violated the interests of Prokom Investment's shareholders and committed a criminal offense. K&K is a small company that started importing ketchup in the 1990s. She then took care of mining licenses in the Congo for the copper group KGHM and the Petrobaltic mining company . According to the prosecutor, K&K did not keep books from 1999 to 2006 and did not produce a financial report for five years. An expert calculated that K & K's liabilities in 2001 exceeded its assets by 368 times. According to the commercial law, K&K should have declared bankruptcy even then. As the special investigators from the Office for Internal Security (ABW) found, Krauze's companies Ulrich SA, Petrolinvest and Prokom transferred almost 50 million zlotys to K&K between 1999 and 2006. In return, they should be given a share of the subsidy income in the Congo. However, there was no funding, and K&K only paid back PLN 15 million. The remainder went to accounts in the US and Congo, according to the investigation. Krauze explained to the court that the project was still going on, had already brought advantages and would bring further advantages. He does not understand why he was brought before the court. At the same time, he allowed his name to be published and photos taken in connection with the trial. Prokom assures that the K&K debts have been sold with a profit of 1 million złoty. The Prokom lawyers requested that the proceedings be terminated. The Business Center Club , an employers' association , asked the Polish Prosecutor General to oversee the proceedings. The procedure lacks a substantive basis and is to be understood as the continuation of a campaign that was initiated under the Government of Law and Justice (PiS).

See also

• List of the richest Poles