At 48, the general manager of Henkel Bautechnik Romania, Marius Ivan, an economist by profession, is an investor in constructions businesses worth around 50 million euros.
One of the founders of the Dufa Romania paint and varnish business, he owns 35% in Henkel Bautechnik Romania (where he is also general manager), a 90% stake in a network of construction material centres, and 90% in Creativ Invest Grup, a company developing real estate projects on the market in Bucharest.
"I want to be both an entrepreneur and a manager. I like to develop projects involving foreign financers, because it is better for me to hold a small piece of a larger business than to have control over a small sized business," Ivan believes.
"I have so far invested 34 million euros together with my partners, a sum also including investments in the Dufa paint producer. Before investing in a business, I do some market research and look for business opportunities in the respective domain," adds Ivan. The manager-investor took to business in the early ''90s, when he dealt with electrical home appliance imports.
Marius Ivan has been the general manager of Henkel Bautechnik Romania since 1999. The company, with more than 130 employees, last year derived turnover worth 27 million euros. At the same time, Ivan has proved to be an astute businessman. He founded the Dufa business in the ?"90s, now among the top three producers of paint and varnish in Romania, together with another Romanian investor, Liviu Stan, and the German group Meffert. In 2005, Dufa shareholders sold the business to the Advent investment fund.
Ivan received around 7.2 million euros from the sale of his 40% participation in Dufa.
"The Dufa business needed major investments and know-how to develop further and we decided to sell it," says Ivan.
The money thus obtained was invested in Creativ Invest and in the Global Real Invest network in the construction material field, a business the German concern Interpares Monau Interbaustoff is also involved in. From his position as manager-entrepreneur, Ivan sets up management teams to coordinate the businesses he has invested in.
"The management teams are usually made up of three persons, a general manager, a financial officer and a commercial one, who have some performance indicators they have to meet over a certain period of time," states Ivan.
According to him, each manager has to work together with the team he leads to motivate his employees.
Marius Ivan says that investments in the Global Real Invest network totalled 10 million euros, while another 10 million euros were earmarked for the development of Henkel Bautechnik operations. catalin.lupoaie@zf.ro
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