Poland’s richest businessman Jan Kulczyk dies suddenly at 65

Poland’s richest man, Jan Kulczyk, died in Vienna on Tuesday from complications after surgery, a spokeswoman at Kulczyk Holding, the company he founded, said.

Kulczyk, 65, succumbed to complications following an operation, Marta Wysocka-Antonsen, a spokeswoman for Kulczyk Investments, said in a statement on Wednesday.

Former Polish president Lech Walesa said that Kulczyk was irreplaceable and added that it would be hard to “organize some things without him”. He invested in the energy and natural resources sectors in Europe and in Africa, and developed the vehicle sector in Poland.

His fortune is estimated to be around $4.3 billion.

Kulczyk, who was born in 1950 in Bydgoszcz, cemented his position as early as the 1980s, before the free market emerged, when he managed to secure a deal as sole importer of new Volkswagen cars to Poland. He started from a trading company set up by his father, and built his fortune taking part in the intensive privatization of state plants after communism.

Kulczyk donated generously to culture and history.

His donation to Poland’s Jewish museum, despite not being Jewish, was the largest single grant from a private donor and allowed the museum, which opened in April 2013, to finish building the core exhibition.

Divorced from his wife, he is survived by a son and a daughter.