"My mother died when I was in prison. She was over 90, but it wasn't illness that killed her. She died of sadness. My father died shortly after her."
Miroslav MiškoviÄ? does not show any emotion as he tells his story - not a flicker of an eye. And it's only after an hour and a half of exclusive conversation with Nova's special correspondent that he agrees to talk about his family. Serbia's richest man is also an iron man, and that's exactly the impression he wants to give. But his direct gaze, the challenging tone in his voice, cannot conceal his bitterness over the wrong he feels has been done to him, the offense he has suffered.
On Dec. 12, 2012, he was arrested on the orders of Belgrade's special court for organized crime, which accused him of distorting the market through financial operations that increased the value of a number of companies operating in the road maintenance sector. MiškoviÄ? did not control these companies, he did not hold any positions on their boards, and the criminal nature of the operations was open to question. But he was kept in prison for more than 7 months, and the case caused a sensation. Not just because MiškoviÄ? is Chairman of Delta Holding, Serbia's most important private company. Not just because he was the first person, in 2008, to represent the Balkans on the Forbes list of the richest people on the planet. Not just because he's a glamorous personality who surrounds himself with beautiful women whom he appoints to positions of great responsibility. But also because of the political implications of the case.
Right after his arrest, the Serbian Prime Minister, Aleksandar Vucic, declared that "there are many politicians on MiškoviÄ?'s side", and explained that the "system" the magnate had put in place included "monthly payments to many people, of sums ranging from 30,000 to 50,000 euros, paid from MiškoviÄ?'s own pocket". In the indictment, however, the word "corruption" does not appear once, and nearly two and a half years on from the arrest, no one has named any names: of corrupted or of corrupters. "In 25 years we have never done business with the state or with state-controlled companies", states MiškoviÄ?. "If you don't do business with the state, there can't be corruption. I still don't know what I'm accused of".
In truth, the businessman built a large part of his fortune by taking an active part in the process of privatizing state-owned companies. He tells the story himself, during lunch on the top floor of the high-rise building that hosts his group's headquarters, in the New Belgrade that he played a large part in creating. The grey autumn day seems to weigh down on the apple tree planted on the terrace. A tree laden with fruit that MiškoviÄ? shows me with a peculiar pride, as though it were one of his enterprises. As we'll discover later on, that is exactly what it was.
The President of Delta Holding was born in a village in the district of Rasina, in central Serbia, on July 5, 1945, just two months after the surrender of Nazi Germany. His father, Djordje, was a shoemaker; his mother, Vera Djukic, a housewife. Serbia was just emerging from a war that had laid the country waste and killed a million people. The socialist regime led by Josip Broz Tito certainly did not focus on wealth. Indeed, of all the socialist regimes, it is the one that more than any other rewarded merit. Miroslav was no ordinary boy. He studied hard, took part in sports, as a sprinter, and obtained an economics degree from the University of Kragujevac, where he met and married his wife Ljiljana. He then moved back to Kruševac, Rasina's administrative centre, to work in the Jugobank, Yugoslavia's most important bank.
The young Miroslav was intensely ambitious. He wanted to come first. After just a few years the bank sent him on a specialization course in Dubrovnik, the ancient Ragusa - a town of rare beauty on the shore of the Adriatic, from where you can almost see Italy. "My teachers were engaged in finance operations day in, day out", he says. "If the University played a 1% part in my development, the school in Dubrovnik accounted for another 30%. And the rest, I learned by working".
After eight months of specialist studies he went back to his job, but this time with a much greater awareness of his own abilities. By the time he was 29 he was Yugoslavia's youngest head of a foreign exchange department. Shortly afterward, he moved to ?upa Chemical Industry, again in Krusevac, as a manager. At that time, ?upa was a distinguished name: Serbia's best, and best managed, industrial company. MiškoviÄ?'s career advanced rapidly and in 1982, aged 33, he became chief executive officer - the youngest manager ever to head up a state holding in socialist Yugoslavia. His successes received formal recognition in 1989 with the Avnoj Award, created by Tito to honor the country's best artists, scientists and managers.
MiškoviÄ?'s prestige was by now so great that he was invited that same year to join the government as deputy prime minister of Serbia, at that time still one of the Yugoslav republics. His task was to begin the privatization process for the country's publicly owned companies. But Yugoslavia was by now on the edge of the abyss. Two years earlier, Slobodan Milosevic had become president of the Serbian Republic, and while MiškoviÄ? was trying, in his government role, to pave the way for the privatization process, Milosevic was embarking on the nationalist path that would lead to the disintegration of the country and to the Balkan wars.
It would have been "a thousand times better" to keep Yugoslavia together, says MiškoviÄ?. "In 1989, when the country began to split up, it had a debt of $15.8 billion. Today, 25 years later, if we add up the debts of its former component countries, the figure has soared to $180 billion." However, MiškoviÄ? didn't stay in government for long. "I was asked to organise the privatization and democratization of the market in Serbia", he explains, adding that "I've always leaned toward capitalism and liberalism." But he soon realised that he was in the wrong place, at the wrong time. "I left the position after six months when I realized that I had different ideas for Serbia, Yugoslavia and development." One reason for his departure was Slobodan Milosevic himself. Contrary to received opinion, "Milosevic wasn't a nationalist, but a man who loved power - and wanted that power, at any cost. Everything that he did, he did solely to retain his power."
So, in 1990, MiškoviÄ? decided to focus his career on the private sector and set up his first company. But the following year, sensing the storm clouds building up, he transferred the head office to Cyprus. At the same time, he established "a relatively large, and strong, company in Moscow. We had an exclusive contract for the distribution of Nike products throughout the Soviet Union, and we bought a cellulose factory on Lake Baikal. In the 1990s, we had more than 2,000 employees in Moscow. From the financial point of view, 80 percent of the company was in Russia, the rest in Serbia." In 2000, at the end of the Yugoslav wars, MiškoviÄ?'s group still had sales of 39 million euros. "We were very small, but we started to expand quickly thanks to the privatization process. In 2002 we sold the cellulose plant in Russia for 20 million euros, having bought it for $1.5 million. We transferred the money to Serbia and embarked on a number of major operations." Those were years of tumultuous growth for the group. Delta Banka, founded in 1991, became Serbia's leading bank, and Delta Osiguranje, founded in 1998, its leading insurance company.
"In 2005 we sold Delta Bank to Banca Intesa for 400 million euros. In 2006 we sold 50 percent of our insurance company to Generali, and this year we sold the remaining 50 percent for 200 million. In 2011 we sold our chain of supermarkets, which covers the entire Balkans region - Bulgaria, Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia - to the Belgian Delhaize group, for 922 million euros. Over this period, Delta sold companies for a total of 1.5 billion euros. Our mission," explains MiškoviÄ?, "is to create enterprises with exceptional people and sell them, at the right time, to international partners. That's what differentiates us from the other companies in the region".
And it is this philosophy - create, grow, sell - that has caused many Serbian politicians to raise an eyebrow. In some circles, the idea has gained ground that MiškoviÄ? speculated on the privatizations, to then sell strategic companies on to foreigners. And indeed the buyers are always Western interests, because no one in Serbia has enough liquidity to buy such important groups. During the election campaign in July 2012, Aleksandar Vucic, at that time deputy prime minister and deputy leader of the Serbian Progressive Party, promised that he would take a firm stance in combating corruption and organized crime, and that he would reopen the controversial privatization dossier - a pledge that won him great public approval.
The European Union has also commented on 24 suspect privatization operations that took place just after the Balkan wars, and has asked the authorities in Belgrade to investigate. But two years after the elections, the only significant judicial proceeding was and remains MiškoviÄ?'s arrest. And his companies do not appear in the list drawn up by Brussels. The businessman was released on a bail of 12 million euros, an unprecedented figure in Serbia. But, he says, "the important thing is that Delta achieved excellent results and financially is even stronger than before. We have very close relations with more than 20 international partners, none of whom has left us."
In spite of its divestments, Delta Holding remains Serbia's most important private group. It deals in property development, agriculture, sportswear and imports-exports, and it represents foreign brands commercially. In the first few months of the year it achieved sales of 227.63 million euros, with pre-tax profits of 22.76 million euros. Notable figures, for a country of just 10 million people.
"Last month we completed 2 major projects. We've opened our first flour and pasta factory, in Novi Sad, once again with Italian technology. And we've opened a new storage facility for apples, which has increased our capacity to over 13,000 tons. As we speak, we are close to signing an agreement with a very important North American company. On Oct. 14 or 15 we'll be announcing our future development plans in the property and agri-food sectors to the press."
MiškoviÄ? allows himself a smile when he talks about his relations with his Italian business contacts. He has fond memories of Sergio Balbinot and Corrado Passera, the former CEOs of Generali and Intesa Sanpaolo. "We're the Italians' strongest partners in south-east Europe," he observes, commenting also on Fiat, Benetton and Ferrero. "Do you see that tree?" he asks, pointing to the terrace. "We're the biggest apple producers in this part of Europe. We have the biggest orchards, and everything we have comes from Alto Adige, from the trees to the personnel, people who for years have been teaching us apple production techniques and technologies."
One surprising feature in this man is the vitality he transmits when he's speaking about his companies, the deals he's made, or his future plans. Especially if you compare that with his cautious approach to political issues. "Serbia is facing a major crisis. Sadly, since 2000 very few people from the economic and financial sectors have had the opportunity to influence economic policies." Delta could play its part "in strengthening the domestic market and attracting foreign investors. We could help the government to reach the goals we approve of, that is, European integration and the EU accession process. But we know that we can only help if we are asked to do so."
It's strange to hear the chairman of a major group express such reluctance. Other magnates have entered politics in person: Michael Bloomberg in New York or Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, for example - personalities with an extremely strong position in the media. MiškoviÄ?, on the other hand, keeps his distance from both politics and the media, worlds towards which he harbours nothing but distrust. Delta, for all its strength, does not own newspapers, radio stations, websites or television channels. Why is that? "It's very dangerous. That's why."