Dan Petrescu (1953 – 3 October 2021) was a Romanian businessman and billionaire, among the richest people in Romania. Born in 1953 in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north o ...

, Petrescu studied at the

Politehnica University of Bucharest Politehnica University of Bucharest ( ro, Universitatea Politehnica din București) is a technical university in Bucharest, Romania. 200 years of activity have been celebrated lately, as the university was founded in 1818.West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 ...

. There, he met who would be his economic partner for years, Ion Țiriac, another Romanian businessman. They were involved in several businesses together and returned to Romania following the

Romanian Revolution The Romanian Revolution ( ro, Revoluția Română), also known as the Christmas Revolution ( ro, Revoluția de Crăciun), was a period of violent civil unrest in Romania during December 1989 as a part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred ...

. Petrescu later ran various businesses on his own, earning a lot of property and a total wealth of around €3 billion. He was private with his personal life, having never given an interview, and was described as humble. Petrescu, his wife and his son and some friends of his family died on 3 October 2021 following an airplane crash on San Donato Milanese, near

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city ...

, in Italy.

Biography

Dan Petrescu was born in 1953 in

. After ending his studies at the

in the 1980s, starting a business in the domain of

automobiles A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded ...

in the country. In West Germany, Petrescu met the Romanian businessman and now former

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball cov ...

player Ion Țiriac, with whom he began to collaborate in tennis-related businesses. Petrescu and Țiriac returned to Romania following the

, where they continued to be economic partners. Petrescu was involved in the development of companies with Țiriac such as the Ion Țiriac Bank (now

UniCredit Bank Romania UniCredit Bank is a leading European Bank, a member of UniCredit Group, with a network of 8,500 branches in 17 European countries and it is present in another 50 international markets Being one of the top 5 banks on the Romanian market, UniCredit ...

) or some real estate companies. Eventually, both businessmen split their ways, with Petrescu starting his own business in real estate and car distribution, thus managing to amass a great fortune. Țiriac would later state at several times that Petrescu had a wealth greater than him. As of 2020, Țiriac was the third richest Romanian in the world, and his net worth was of 6 billion

Romanian lei The Romanian leu (, plural lei ; ISO code: RON; numeric code: 946) is the currency of Romania. It is subdivided into 100 (, singular: ), a word that means "money" in Romanian. Etymology The name of the currency means "lion", and is deriv ...

on that year. Petrescu was notable for his confidentiality and for how little was known about him, this being the reason why he was sometimes called the "shadow billionaire" ( ro, miliardarul din umbră). Petrescu never gave an interview, tried not to stand out and did his business through several

offshore companies The term "offshore company" or “offshore corporation” is used in at least two distinct and different ways. An offshore company may be a reference to: * a company, group or sometimes a division thereof, which engages in offshoring business p ...

. He was described as humble and it has been said about Petrescu that "he drove an

Opel Vectra The Opel Vectra is a mid-size car ( large family car) that was engineered and produced by the German automaker Opel from 1988 until 2010. Available in saloon, hatchback and estate body styles, the Vectra was also sold by the Vauxhall marque ...

for years" and that "you could see him on a scooter on the street and not know who he is". He was jokingly called Petre Ispirescu by his friends since "he had an innate talent for telling stories". Petrescu controlled vast extensions of land in Romania, including in the capital Bucharest. He owned 150 apartments in the city, as well as several

villa A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became ...

s. His companies built dozens of shopping centers, some of which operated

Auchan Auchan () is a French multinational retail group headquartered in Croix, France. It was founded in 1961 by Gérard Mulliez and is owned by the Mulliez family, who has 95% stake in the company. With 354,851 employees, of which 261,000 have 5% ...

Carrefour Carrefour () is a French multinational retail and wholesaling corporation headquartered in Massy, France. The eighth-largest retailer in the world by revenue, it operates a chain of hypermarkets, groceries stores and convenience stores, whic ...

Metro AG Metro AG is a German multinational company based in Düsseldorf which operates business membership only cash and carry stores primarily under the Metro brand. Until 2020 it was also active in general retail business through Real division, w ...

and

Real Real may refer to: Currencies * Brazilian real (R$) * Central American Republic real * Mexican real * Portuguese real * Spanish real * Spanish colonial real Music Albums * ''Real'' (L'Arc-en-Ciel album) (2000) * ''Real'' (Bright album) (2010) ...

stores. Petrescu used to rent some of the spaces he owned for periods of between 10 and 20 years, which contributed to part of his great fortune. His wealth has been estimated to have been €3 billion. Petrescu held both Romanian and German citizenship. Petrescu died on 3 October 2021, aged 68, in an airplane crash. He owned a private plane, a

Pilatus PC-12 The Pilatus PC-12 is a pressurized, single-engined, turboprop aircraft, manufactured by Pilatus Aircraft of Stans, Switzerland, since 1991. It was designed as a high-performance utility aircraft that incorporates a large aft cargo door in ...

, which he bought in 2015 and piloted himself. The plane carried the

registration Register or registration may refer to: Arts entertainment, and media Music * Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc. * ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller * Registration (organ), th ...

YR-PDV and was registered in Romania, having set off from there on 30 September 2021. It later arrived in

, in Italy, and on the day of the crash, it took off from there at 13:03 CEST bound for

Olbia Olbia (, ; sc, Terranoa; sdn, Tarranoa) is a city and commune of 60,346 inhabitants (May 2018) in the Italian insular province of Sassari in northeastern Sardinia, Italy, in the historical region of Gallura. Called ''Olbia'' in the Roman age ...

, also in Italy, and crashed into an empty building under renovation shortly after on 13:12 CEST on San Donato Milanese, close to Milan. The plane had eight passengers of varying nationalities (mostly Romanian and Italian), all of whom died. One of them was Dan Petrescu, as well as his son Dan Ștefan Petrescu and his wife Regina Dorotea Petrescu Balzat. Other victims were Filippo Nascimbene, his wife Claire Stephanie Caroline Alexandrescou, their one-year-old baby boy Raphael Nascimbene and Claire's mother Miruna Anca Wanda Lozinschi, as well as Julien Brossard, all of them being friends of the Petrescu family. Following the airplane crash, it was announced that the Romanian businesswoman Anca Surugiu, who had been an assistant and coordinator for all of Petrescu's companies, would take over his fortune.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Petrescu, Dan 1953 births 2021 deaths Romanian billionaires Romanian real estate businesspeople Businesspeople from Bucharest German people of Romanian descent Naturalized citizens of Germany Politehnica University of Bucharest alumni Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in Italy Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 2021