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How did he privatize Takovo?
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Drašković reveals the value of the business empire he heads
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A business empire spanning nine countries
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TREBINJE – He writes poetry, creates, repairs Chinese clocks all day long – if necessary, drinks a drink he calls lemoncello, and manages economic wealth that he estimates at 1.5 billion euros. All these are just sketches about Rodoljub Drašković, the owner of Swisslion Takovo, who was a guest of the podcast Nikad u minus on Capital TV.
Although he welcomed us in the City of the Sun near Trebinje, which can be reached next to one of his luxurious castles, he says he was not interested in material wealth.
CAPITAL: Who is Rodoljub Drašković today?
Draskovic: A failed artist.
CAPITAL: And what are you like as a businessman?
Draskovic: Proven.
CAPITAL: How many businesses do you have?
Draskovic: I wouldn’t be able to say, I think it’s around 40. I know that we have 98 production lines, each production line can be considered a factory. I know the business of every company. I don’t know how many factories I have. I know that I have over 10,000 employees, that it is one huge family, that I take care of them. I am a socialist at heart.
Today, there are our staff all over Bosnia and Herzegovina, in state and economic institutions, not to mention Serbia. If I brought back all those staff that I trained, it would be the strongest professional team in Europe.
CAPITAL: How many countries do you operate in?
Draskovic: At nine, everyone is working successfully.
CAPITAL: Do you have an estimate of how much your system is worth?
Draskovic: Estimates were made, more than one and a half billion euros. Although our know-how is worth just as much.
About the privatization of Takovo
CAPITAL: How did you privatize Takovo?
Draskovic: My colleagues informed me that Takovo is for sale, on tender, to be privatized. But I knew that it was suffering heavy losses, that it was a combine, that it had somewhere around 3,800 employees. Due to their debts, they could not even purchase raw materials. They could not secure the production process. I responded to the tender, determined the price, assessed what I could offer, and believed that I would overcome the problems and turn them into a successful company.
That’s what happened, I was the best in the tender. A good and stable, healthy company would not appeal to me because I have always been the opposition. I am still today. A healthy economic fabric could not convince me to buy it. I’m not connected to the state mafia. But what nobody wanted to buy, I showed up.
CAPITAL: You went to Belgrade to study medicine and enrolled in theater arts, how did that come about? When did you realize that art is useless?
Draskovic: I meet a high school graduate from Belgrade, beautiful, hot, we meet at a dance, I ask her what are you going to study, she says – Theater Academy. She asks me, I say – the same. We go to the reception, they accept me, but not her.
CAPITAL: What did you tell your parents?
Draskovic: Kryo. I only showed them the index that I enrolled in the university, which I did not announce. After two years, I decided to enroll in another faculty, enrolling in agro-economics and at the same time enrolling in technology. And I’m studying three faculties at the same time.
When I enrolled at the Faculty of Agriculture, my company welcomed me. The first day when I went to lectures, there was a square in front of the student town, there was a Kosta newspaper seller, Večernje novosti, and on one of them I heard: “The latest news, the peasant Rojo from Gack has come to study deep plowing.”
CAPITAL: And finally, do you have a recommendation, you say a healthy drink, that you designed yourself?
Draskovic: I am the creator of the viljamovka technology, I inherited the viljamovka from Takovo, we refined it, and got the perfect viljamovka, a brand above all breeds. I didn’t stop there either, so I invented a new drink, which is a cold viljamovka in a jug, half viljamovka, half squeezed lemon. Without going into chemistry, there is also a base and an acid, a good drink for the body.
You can watch the entire conversation with Rodoljub Drašković on Capital’s YouTube channel.
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Source: capital.ba
