In 2010 Tiriac Holdings, which has automotive, real estate, insurance, banking, air transport and financial services operations, posted EUR600 million revenue, compared with EUR2 billion in the days of economic boom.
“We replaced the CEO concept with COO (chief operating officer) specialized in the three segments: real estate, automotive, and finance. Considering our group is so large and so specific in various fields, we decided to have a head of operations for each division,” Ion Alexandru Tiriac, the son of the billionaire and his representative in all his businesses told ZF. “As for the board, it reviews decisions and makes recommendations.”
He added that Ion Tiriac continued to make decisions about the group’s operations every day.
The two new chief operating officers are Iulian Voevod for the automotive and air transport segment–Tiriac Auto, the three importers: Hyundai Auto Romania, M Car trading (Mitsubishi) and Premium Auto (Jaguar and Land Rover) and Tiriac Air–and Bogdan Lungu for the real estate and financial services segment–Tiriac Imobiliare, Tiriac Leasing, Premium Leasing and Tiriac Brokers.
Marius Pitigoi, one of the longest-standing employees of Tiriac, will continue to supervise the automotive group, i.e. the three importers and the Tiriac Auto dealer network.
Tiriac’s businesses were headed in the last decade by Radu Merica (2001 through 2005), Anca Ioan, former head of Roland Berger Romania (2005 through 2008), and Petru Vaduva (2009 through 2011).
The first rumors about a potential ‘breakup’ of Tiriac and Petru Vaduva surfaced last December. To put an end to the rumors, Ion Alexandru Tiriac publicly stated that Vaduva’s term has been extended. Sources on the market said Vaduva was still with the group though not as CEO. His mission, after he was brought from Moscow (where he worked for brokerage firm UralSib) in 2009, was to steer the group clear of losses during the crisis and streamline the operations of the companies part of it.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)