From Wikipedia

Dan Costache "Dinu" Patriciu is the chairman of the board and CEO of The Rompetrol Group, NV. He is also a prominent member of the National Liberal Party of Romania and a member of the International Advisory Board of the Atlantic Council. According to Forbes, as of 2008, Dinu Patriciu is the richest man in Romania, and the 462nd richest person in the world, with a fortune of $2.5 billion.^[1]

Background

Dinu Patriciu holds a master's degree from the Bucharest Institute of Architecture and has served as a professor there since 1975. He has received a number of architectural design awards in Romania and abroad. He has an extensive background in the real estate industry, having completed more than forty housing and commercial projects in Romania and more than 25 luxury residential complexes, offices and hotels in the United Arab Emirates. He was born in 1950, is married and has two daughters: Ana and Maria.

Business career

Dinu Patriciu is Chairman and CEO of The Rompetrol Group, NV (TRG), a multinational petroleum company headquartered in the Netherlands, operating in 13 countries, and with the majority of its assets and income located in Romania, France and South Eastern Europe. Patriciu led an investor buyout of Rompetrol SA in 1998, served on the Supervisory Board of the company since its establishment, and took over as the full time CEO in 2001. Formerly, Patriciu acted as Chairman of the Investment Committee of the Romania and Moldova Direct Fund, LP, an American-managed private equity investment fund established in 1998 whose investors include the International Finance Corporation and the German Government-owned DEG. ^[2]

Patriciu led Rompetrol from a state-owned Romanian oil services company into one of the top 25 oil operators in the European Union, principally through a program of strategic acquisitions and organic growth. This program started with the purchase of the Vega refinery (1999), continued with Petros SA (2000) and the purchase of a majority stake in Petromidia SA (2001), owner of the most modern refinery and petrochemical complex in Romania. Subsequently, TRG embarked on an international expansion program in the Balkan region, in Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine, as well as acquiring Dyneff Group SA of France, ^[3] the largest independent distributor of oil products in France, at the end of 2005. This latest acquisition, along with the development of its Swiss-based trading arm, Vector Energy, transformed TRG into a bridge between Eastern European natural resources and Western European energy demand.

Patriciu owns the Romanian daily Adevărul.^[4] As of August 2008, he was also in the process of buying the Ukrainian tabloid Blik from Ringier.^[5]

Dinu Patriciu is also the founder and chairman of the Dinu Patriciu Foundation, a non-governmental organisation which aims at offering financial support to talented young people who are not in the position to further sustain their studies.

Political career

Between 1990 and 1996, and again from 2000 to 2003, Patriciu has served as a Member of the Romanian Parliament, being a leader of the National Liberal Party’s parliamentary group. He is a founding member of the National Liberal Party in Romania and initiator of the Free Initiative Foundation, the first Romanian NGO to support free initiative and reunite the business and political communities in an attempt to support civic development. A prominent liberal figure, Patriciu withdrew in 2003 from the Parliament and from active political life to concentrate on his business ventures. He was one of only three Romanian MPs to do so when new legislation made it incompatible for elected officials to also control significant business holdings. He remains attuned to the political life of Romania and is a keen supporter of pro-business and liberal development policies in the country.

Patriciu also serves as the Chairman of the Alliance of Romanian Employers’ Confederations, the Romanian member of UNICE, the Confederation of European Business. In addition to TRG, he is a shareholder in several entities including a building & real estate company and a media holding.

Controversies

In 2005 he was the force behind Prime Minister Tariceanu's reversal of a promise to President Basescu to hold new elections. Tariceanu later defended Patriciu against corruption charges.

From 2005 to 2007 he has faced a series of investigations into organized crime and insider information allegations. In June 2005, he was investigated in a corruption case involving his company Rompetrol.^[6]

He financially sponsored the Social Democratic Party, a rival to his own party, the National Liberal Party, during the 2004 parliamentary elections^[7][8].

He has also been accused of pulling the strings, behind the scenes, in the cabinet of Romanian prime minister Calin Popescu-Tariceanu ^[9].

External links

• Articles in Ziarul Financiar about Dinu Patriciu
• fundatiadinupatriciu.ro – Fundatia Dinu Patriciu / The Dinu Patriciu Foundation website (in Romanian, partly in English)

References