Enver Moralić is originally from Kotor Varoši, and he spent his childhood and youth in Banja Luka in a humble family with many children: his mother was a housewife, a descendent of the medieval Bosnian Kotromanić family of viceroys, and his father was a driver in a bus companyIn Božjakovina, a town in the Vrbovec area only 15 kilometres from Zagreb, the great wine shop Svijet vina was opened on Friday afternoon. For wine connoisseurs, there is no secret that this was a great party in Božjakovina d.d., owned by Enver Moralić , one of Europe’s wealthiest businessmen. Eleven years ago, after being at the top of the European and world oil business, he bought an abandoned agricultural cooperative, his first investment in Croatia.

“Here I have achieved my childhood dream of owning lots of land,” said 68 year old Moralić , who received us in the Štakorovec manor, his home since returning to Croatia. The 18^th century manor was reconstructed from the foundation up according to the design of architect Boris Podrecco, and is a perfect combination of traditional and modern architecture, very luxurious and carefully decorated in wood and metal. The manor, which also holds a large indoor swimming pool, has been photographed and published in professional architectural magazines, and life here is ideal and comfortable, with its orchards, vineyards, horses, stables, farm buildings, tennis courts, forests and slopes.

Enver Moralić is originally from Kotor Varoši, and he spent his childhood and youth in Banja Luka in a humble family with many children: his mother was a housewife, a descendent of the medieval Bosnian Kotromanić family of viceroys, and his father was a driver in a bus company. When he graduated from the Faculty of Agronomy, he thought we would work on the land, but circumstances lead him elsewhere, first into the artificial fertilizer and plant protection business, and then into the oil industry. He built up a large business empire which stretched into several countries. He owns several chemical companies, an oil field and plastics company in Kazakhstan, property in Canada and a nickel mine in Russia.

Božjakovina, a 2500 hectare estate, was purchased from small shareholders. He returned the companies debts and invested much money into the company. Last weekend he held a tasting of his wine varieties, Riesling and pinot, produced on all three vineyards he has since purchased and raised to high standards: Kutjevo and Bric on the Slovenian side of Istria.

His investments in Croatia did not go smoothly either in Tudjman’s or in Račan’s time, when he ran up against Minister Slavko Linić and accused him on several occasions of maintaining Tudjman’s economic policies based on plundering and corruption.

“Today we are opening the wine cellar for Kutjevo, Božjakovina and Bric, and this is a symbolic transition to a new way of selling and producing wines. We have called this wine cellar Svijet vina (World of wine), and here we will offer all that is included in our production, and all that needs to be known will be continued at the Wine Academy that we founded in Kutjevo. This centre has been registered and here we will teach winegrowers, grape-growers, cattle breeders, fruit growers, and this will be an agricultural education centre. This will be practical education, with seminars lasting for one to two months. At first we will limit ourselves to Croatia, and then later include Bosnia Herzegovina, Slovenia, Serbia. The basic instruction will be given by our experts and if needed, we will invite lecturers from universities and elsewhere,” said Enver Moralić.

NACIONAL : Near Božjakovina, in Vrbovec, was where you had your first job after completing university in Zagreb?

- It was supposed to be my first job, because I had a contract with the agricultural cooperative in Vrbovec, but I went elsewhere. I was all ready to begin working in Vrbovec, but when I spoke to a friend about it, the director of the Zagreb company Kemikalija, he said, “No, you’ll work for me, we need an agronomist, and I’ll take care of everything with the coop director.” And so I stayed in Zagreb.

NACIONAL : And then they sent you to Frankfurt as a representative for Kemikalija, where you remained until today.

- After working in Zagreb for three years, they offered to send me to either Frankfurt or Moscow. I chose Frankfurt. At that time, I worked on plant protection and artificial fertilizers. I always wanted to be an agronomist, even as a child I always dreamed that one day I would have my own land, an estate.

NACIONAL: You came to Zagreb from Banja luka. Where does this love for land come from?

- At the age of seven, I knew I wanted to be an agronomist. I collected insects, plants, I had a herbarium and my own small garden where I grew tomatoes and more. That is why I didn’t want to go to a classical secondary school, but enrolled in the agricultural school in Banja luka. I learned a great deal and received a base of knowledge. But ever since I was small, my only wish was to have land, sheep and cows. In the former Yugoslavia, no individual could have a large estate, but only a few hectares of land. That is why I wanted to go to Canada or Australia, though then it was difficult to get a passport. I was already working at Kemikalija and married to a German woman when I requested a visa to enter Canada, but the opportunity arose to go to Germany and so I decided not to go to Canada.

NACIONAL: Where did you meet your wife?

- In Croatia. I was on summer vacation when I met Rozwit, who was there with a group of German students.

NACIONAL: Moving to Germany must have suited you both.

- She wasn’t thrilled. She loved living in Zagreb, she learned Croatian, she even enrolled in Slavic studies. She speaks Croatian better than I do, she writes books and translates. However, my decision was influenced by the fact that I had spent a year in Germany to see how things were there and to learn the language.

NACIONAL: Why did Kemikalija want to bring you back to Zagreb after three years in Germany?

- I had a four year contract. I worked for Kemikalija in the USSR and other eastern countries. A Bosnian man then became director of Kemikalija and he wanted me to take over a sector. There is nothing in life that you must do, which I still believe today. He threatened me saying that if I wasn’t back in two months that I would be fired. I could have gone back, but that would have meant leaving my family in Germany. At that time, two of my four children had already been born. I said that I would not return and he said that he would take away my passport and I would never be able to return to Yugoslavia. I accepted that and for many years after establishing my own company, I didn’t work with Yugoslavia.

NACIONAL: You established your own company Kemokomplex. How did you start?

-It wasn’t easy, but I knew people in Germany and eastern European countries, so at first I worked with petrochemical products. I met the vice-president of the then largest Russian oil company, and he told me to give him I call when I came to Moscow. When I arrived, we went to dinner and he invited all the directors. I was working with oil, but with products I had worked with before. At that time, oil was $12 a barrel, today its $66. There were large quantities. At that time a million dollars was live five now. I opened branch offices of my companies in Moscow and other eastern European capitals. Kemokomplex became one of the largest trading companies in the Soviet Union.

NACIONAL: Where did you see the oil?

- The oil and oil products were sold on the western market, and that was fantastic.

NACIONAL : Some say that you earned the majority of your fortune on the jumps in oil prices?

- The first oil crisis was in 1974-5 and the second in 1979-80. Later there were not such drastic crises. There were contracts with Russian partners at $12 per barrel and two months later the price rose to $16. In such situations, it was most important to have goods. Traders backed by banks and funds showed up and bought and sold oil. I have one document which shows that one of my ships of oil for petrochemicals had 124 buyers in one week. While it sailed, it changed hands 124 times. I was owner of that cargo four times. Of course, we all earned something there.

NACIONAL: When did you earn your first million dollars?

- I earned the first million after two years. There is a great deal of risk in this business, but I like risk with intuition. I thought, I have a diploma, if it all falls through, I can go back to Bosnia and raise sheep.

NACIONAL: You arrived in Croatia from the Ukraine where a political earthquake is underway. What is your business there?

- The Ukraine has developed greatly. This progress is not only visible in the cities but also in the undeveloped areas. When you go to Kiev today, it’s as though you’ve come to Paris. I went there because of my chemical factories that I plan to expand, but also because I am interested in their agriculture, which have massive possibilities. Its an endless land, you sit on your tractor at noon and by the time you reach the end of your plot it’s night. Make a deal with the local power holders and you can receive a concession for 49 years.

NACIONAL: What would you grow in the Ukraine?

- My friends there have large vineyards. All that I have here is silly compared to that. Their knowledge, technology and education are at low levels and so we’ve agreed on cooperation. This group has 14 thousand hectares of vineyards, and 40 thousand hectares of land – which means it is twenty times larger than Kutjevo. With this kind of potential, tradition and climate, we could soon become the largest wine producers in Europe. The vineyards there were abandoned under Gorbachev when he issued a ban on alcohol: the Ukraine, Georgia and Moldavia all supplied the entire Soviet Union with wine.

NACIONAK: How far have you come in this project and how many years do you need to become the largest European producer?

- The project has already been worked out, these are the Bezarabia wines, named after the region in the Ukraine. Here there are many Bulgarians who moved here three hundred years ago when they fled from the Turks, and the Bulgarians are well known as good farmers. I expect that we will be first in Europe in five years.

NACIONAL : You have spent a great deal of time in the former Soviet Union over the past twenty years. Where were you most?

- In Moscow, but I have traveled a great deal throughout its then republics. In recent years, I have made many visits to Kazakhstan. Since buying Božjakovina 11 years ago, I am most interested in agriculture.

NACIONAL: Have you always run the business from Frankfurt?

- Yes, but I plan to move my base to Croatia or Slovenia, in Koper where I have a factory and vineyard.

NACIONAL: Where do you own houses?

- Other than in Koper and Božjakovina, I have houses in Cavtat and Frankfurt. I never bought a house in Moscow and now I am only interested in the Ukraine.

NACIONAL: When you started your business in Germany, you had two partners, one of which was Boris Vukobrat, who tried to work in Croatia much earlier than you did. Was that already Kemokomplex?

- No, that was the Copechim Group, but we split and I left the company, while they stayed.

NACIONAL: In the 1980s you had a contract with the Americans on supplying oil.

- Those were massive quantities of oil. I went to the US frequently, and then I was banned. Nothing dramatic happened, but through the oil trade my Russian partner and I were trading oil with Cuba during the embargo. We received a trade ban which is still in effect.

NACIONAL: Why did you return to Croatia in the early 1990s?

- I could buy land and begin to realize my childhood dreams. Here it was easiest, as I have friends, brothers and sisters here. I have always loved Zagreb, I spent the best year of studying here, here I started my career. I then thought about moving to Croatia, then the crisis in Germany began and globalization brings with it new opportunities.

NACIONAL: Even today you own several chemical companies.

- One is in Kaštel, but it is not in operation, Adriavinil. One part of the factory we sold to Dina, which will transfer that production to Krk. I will move a second factory to the Ukraine where we will produce plastics. I have a factory in Koper, also chemicals for plastics, and factories in the Ukraine, Hungary, Kazakhstan and Serbia.

NACIONAL: How involved are you now in the oil trade?

- I am still involved and we are about to close a good deal in Kazakhstan. I already have an oil field, and a great project will begin by the end of the year.

- NACIONAL: How many people work for Kemokomplex? What are the revenues?

-Very few, about twenty employees in Kemokomplex and two other companies. The headquarters are still in Frankfurt, though I have a branch office in Zagreb. The group has annual revenues of over $300 million.

NACIONAL: You have the image of a mysterious businessman and you certainly did not earn your fortune without passing many hurdles. It is known that your arrival and business in Croatia did not go smoothly. What happened?

- There were many very bad situations. I offered a large amount of money for PIK Vrbovec, but they wouldn’t sell it to me. That meat industry is now gone. But they also didn’t want to see Božjakovina to me.

NACIONAL: Who was against the sale? Tudjman?

- I don’t know whether he was directly involved, but some of his players were. When the privatization of Božjakovina was announced, we have an offer and I received a letter in my mailbox on the last day of the tender period saying that not all the conditions had been met. I don’t remember who else was in the running, but no one won. The next round, again, no winners. That summer we offered to buy out the shares of the workers, and that is how we won that battle.

- NACIONAL: What state was the estate in?

- It was all abandoned, we needed to clean everything, starting from the old tools. We bought new mechanization and invested 40 million German marks. We erected silos and a factory for cereal processing, new stables for cows, sheep and horses. Now we have 70 employees here. I also have stables for cows and horses by the Štakorovec castle, that is for my soul. There is another castle on Božjakovina which belonged to the Drašković family, but I haven’t renovated it yet. I already had a contract with the fund and gave a bank guarantee for PIK Vrbovec, but there were various games at stake and when President Tudjman reviewed the situation, he told them not to sell to me. The contract was nullified and my money returned to me.

NACIONAL: At one time you wanted to make a vinyl chain in Croatia, but didn’t succeed. Why not?

- That was to produce vinyl chloride monomers, the basis for producing plastic PVC. Croatia had the Adriavinil factory in Kastel, the Polichem factory in Zadar, OKI in Zagreb and Dina on Krk. My idea was to buy the entire complex, all the factories and to round out the entire production process. Because of the war, time and the loss of market, all this was left to decay and I decided to bring it back to life with the largest Russian oil company Lukoil. That was already during the time of the Račan government, three or four years ago. We proposed to take 76% of ownership and invest 400 million marks, but Slavko Linić refused to receive me and Lukoil. Nor did it help when after several letters and calls I publicly criticized Linić saying that he had forced me out of Croatia, like Lukoil, because he was protecting a group which was earning massive profits within the vinyl chain. When I saw that Linić refused to listen, I decided to back away. I came to work in Croatia because I feel like a Croat, but to them I am a Bosnian. Some people were not suited that I should take their “Croatian wealth”. That industry is now gone. Ježić is attempting to make something happen on Krk, but those are massive investment. It is very difficult to survive alongside the large multinational corporations.

NACIONAL: And you also had problems while buying Kutjevo?

- I gave an offer in the first tender, accepted the terms but requested 96% ownership. That was at the end of 2003. When the government offered by 76%, I declined, but after three months, Račan sent his Economy Minister to me to suggest I take it anyway. I told them I was no longer interested, and after talks I consented, but at a lower price than before.

NACIONAL: Are your two daughters and two sons involved in your business?

- My youngest Maxim, who is 28, finished Economics at the Geothe University in Frankfurt and he now works in Croatia. He spent 6 months at Agrokor as an internship after coming from Frankfurt. Now he is vice-president of Kutjevo, a member of the board, and his primary concern is wine. My daughters are in Germany, the oldest expecting her fourth child and the youngest is not yet married. My younger son Zafir founded the association Sunce with Dr. Jakovljević from Rebro Hospital to help people with psychological troubles. I bought office space for that association, where they work with fifty people a day. Zafir became involved in this after he himself had those problems.

NACIONAL: You most frequently travel by your own plane. What kind of a plane do you have?

- It’s a turbojet Beachcraft plane which can fly direct to Moscow. Now I usually fly to the Ukraine and have made 8000 kilometres. I keep it at the airfield in Koper.

NACIONAL: What is your lifestyle with the fortune you have earned?

- My greatest pleasure is when I can get up in the morning and spend the day in peace. I get up around seven and when I am here at Štakorovec, I go to the stables and go horseback riding through the forest and fields for an hour or two. My favourite is Vanja, a mare from Iceland. After that I eat breakfast, read the newspaper and my mail and continue with my day on the telephone and in meetings.

NACIONAL: Do you have reliable associates that you can trust with running your businesses?

- Even with good associates, I know what is happening everyday because I still haven’t come across one person that I can trust completely. Only my son Maxim. However, it is not a burden for me to have all the ropes in my hands. He who is not prepared to do that best not even get started.

NACIONAL: Your brothers have worked a lot with you. Are they still with you?

- They were and the left. Now each has his own business and that is for the best.

NACIONAL: Have you accomplished all your goals?

- In terms of materials wealth, I think I have too much and I would like to get rid of many things. I have it all, even good health. I also consider my freedom and the fact that I rely on no one to be great wealth.

NACIONAL: You will soon be living permanently in Croatia. What about your children?

- My daughters will likely not leave Germany, but I would like my son to stay here. My wife would also like to stay in Frankfurt, and she accepts that I live here where I like it best. That is her homeland, this is mine. She writes, paints and composes and can finally achieve her dreams, now that our children are on their own. I love it here in Božjakovina, and I would like to restore the castles in Kutjevo.

NACIONAL: You are one of the wealthiest men in Europe. How would you rate yourself on the list of the richest people?

- That is hard to say, but I believe that a truly rich man is the one who does not know how much he has.

NACIONAL: Is that you ?
- In a way.

BIOGRAPHY

Born in 1935 in Kotor Varoša
1955 Completed agricultural secondary school in Banja Luka
1962 Graduated from the Faculty of Agronomy in Zagreb
1965-69 Worked at Kemikalija in Zagreb
1969-74 Representative for Kemikalija in Frankfurt
1975 Established his own company Kemokomplex
1994 First investment in Croatia, buys Božjakovina
2003 Buys Kutjevo