Dinu Patriciu

Dan Costache (Dinu) Patriciu (; 3 August 1950 – 19 August 2014) was a Romanian billionaire businessman and politician. At the time of his death, Patriciu was the richest man in Romania. His wealth was based on the Rompetrol company (the second largest oil company in Romania), which he took over from the Romanian state and later sold to Kazakhstan's state-owned KazMunayGas.

Patriciu's business activity was marred by legal troubles, being charged with defrauding the state, money laundering and illegally manipulating markets, but he successfully withstood the investigations into allegedly corrupt privatization deals.

A supporter of right-libertarian politics, Patriciu was a long-time member of the National Liberal Party (PNL). During the 2009 Romanian presidential election, Patriciu released a video in which President Băsescu appeared to hit a boy; Traian Băsescu sued for libel and won. In 1991, he was named the Minister for Public Works and Territorial Planning.

Patriciu was an unsuccessful candidate for Mayor of Bucharest in the 1996 Romanian local election. He resigned on June 18, 2003 due to incompatibility between public office and his private business interests.

Business activity

Real estate In 1990, he founded the first private company in Romania, "Alpha", having architecture and constructions activities. The following year, Patriciu's company began buying land in a northern district of Bucharest to build an apartment complex. A couple of octogenarians initially refused to sell, before reaching an agreement. Short time after this, the old man died and his wife disappeared, police being informed of this disappearance by a business associate of Patriciu.

In 2007, he bought the Fabian Romania Property Fund, a British real estate investment fund in Romania. He previously, in 2011, liquidated his worth €110 million portfolio of Swedish property, as well as some properties in Paris and Hague.

Dinu Patriciu sold 75% of the shares in Rompetrol to Kazakhstan's KazMunayGas for $2.7 billion in 2007, becoming the richest Romanian. and increased the holding's portfolio to include the Click! tabloid, the local edition of Forbes, OK! and Foreign Policy, as well as cultural magazine Dilema Veche, women's magazine Tango and science popularization magazine, Știință și Tehnică. According to Coface Romania, the development was done using credit from suppliers and banks, with almost no funding from the investors. He was freed at the end of the 24 hours, as the judges refused to extend the warrant requested by the prosecutors. Patriciu was accused of being involved, as CEO of Rompetrol, in a case of embezzlement in 1999–2001. The company misappropriated an amount of $85 million owed to the state budget under EPSA agreements. Băsescu said that he did not make the note public earlier because he wanted to avoid derailing the negotiations for EU admission.

Patriciu died on 19 August 2014, aged 64, at the Royal Free Hospital He was buried in the Bucharest Bellu Cemetery, in a private ceremony.