Polish weekly Wprost quoted by Ukrainian news outlet Segodnya has included Romanian football and real estate mogul turned politician Gigi Becali as Romania’s richest person in its famous list of richest Eastern Europeans. Among Romanians, Becali is followed by businessman Ion Tiriac on the Wprost listing, which is dominated by Russians with 43 business people.
Segodnya depicts Becali as owner of the Bucharest-based football club and a populist politician who bets on the religious card. His fortune is evaluated by Wprost at 900 million US dollars.
The list was accomplished before the sale of the majority stake in Romanian oil group Rompetrol to a Kazakh company and of key businesses in oil services group Petromservice to Petrom. Both deals are said to have placed businessmen Dinu Patriciu (Rompetrol) and Sorin Ovidiu Vantu (thought to be behind Petromservice) among Romania’s richest.
