A billionaire who adores luxury and hates paying taxes: Šolak “earned” planes, yachts, golf courses, villas, and a football club through dubious business deals
Dragan Šolak is best known to the public here as the founder and, with a variable share, owner of United Group. He would probably have been the happiest billionaire had it all stopped there. However, thanks above all to Kurir’s investigations, the other side of his business empire and the methods Šolak used to amass an absurdly large fortune have come to light. Based on data collected from various registers, Kurir identified him as the first Serbian euro-billionaire, as his wealth was estimated at more than 1.45 billion euros.
By purchasing the English Premier League club Southampton in 2022, Šolak stepped out of the carefully constructed media underground in which he had operated for decades. At that point, he also launched an intensive campaign to brand himself as a successful businessman on a par with the world’s best-known names in global business. The idyllic image was disrupted by Kurir and later by several international investigative media outlets that took an interest in the Serbian tycoon’s suspicious and diverse connections. In the series dedicated to Šolak, we dissected every segment of his operations and laid out the genesis of his rise from a VHS tape salesman to the first Serbian billionaire and owner of the English Saints.
One of the best illustrations of Šolak’s ostentatious wealth were the photographs published in August by Jutarnji List, showing him flaunting himself in Adriatic waters near Pula aboard his luxury yacht, nearly 50 metres long, weighing almost 500 tonnes, and, according to the SuperYachtFan website, worth at least 10 million dollars.
Listing all the items that make up what is called Dragan Šolak’s wealth was a real undertaking, given that the number of companies in which he holds open or concealed ownership increases by the day. During months of investigation and detailed examination of all available official documents, Kurir’s team discovered three years ago that, in addition to his ownership stake in the parent company United Group (which at the time amounted to 34 per cent), there were traces indicating that Šolak had been, or still was, a shareholder in more than a hundred companies. Just as he had remained below the radar for decades while extracting enormous profits for himself, so too did his vast property portfolio and his grey-zone business arrangements, along with his luxurious lifestyle and political maneuvering, stay under the radar.
In addition to ownership of valuable, highly profitable companies supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and world-renowned speculative investment funds, Šolak is also the owner of extensive movable and immovable property worth more than one hundred million euros. Among the assets that the United Group owner possessed at that time as part of his personal wealth were a luxury house on Lake Geneva worth several tens of millions of euros, luxury private aircraft, and golf courses across the world.
In Serbia, Šolak was the actual owner of stakes in the companies Techhill Plaza and Dansav Plaza, which were primarily engaged in the purchase and sale of their own real estate, as well as the company Ali Invest, which dealt with leasing and managing its own or rented propertiesAccording to Kurir’s investigation, he held a 33.78 per cent stake in 21 companies: United Group, Serbia Broadband – Srpske kablovske mreže (SBB), Pantic Electronic Cable Television, Netlogic, the allegedly former company of Dragan Đilas Direct Media, Shoppster d.o.o. Beograd, Tako lako Shop, Fusion Communications, Big Print, Direct Media komunikacije, Media Point, Grand Slam Group, CAS Media, United Media Production, United Media Digital, Newsmax Adria, United Cloud, Absolut Solutions, Adria News, City Media plus-streaming ex Yu, and the TV channel Ultra (in liquidation). Šolak held stakes of less than 30 per cent in the companies Brainz (25.34 per cent) and Fortuna E Sports (27.02 per cent).
This year, he sold a large part of his business, including SBB and the sports content of Sport Klub, marking the end of the monopoly era of Šolak and United Group.
Kurir has repeatedly written about the concealment of actual ownership and tax evasion as the central business philosophy of Dragan Šolak. Our investigations revealed him as the true owner of several companies registered in offshore zones, which most often appeared as ultimate owners within his corporate network and held profits on which no taxes were paid in Serbia.
Among them were Gerrard Enterprises (Isle of Man), Gerrard MIP (Cayman Islands), and Gerrard Consultancy Service Limited (British Virgin Islands). Indirectly, through Gerrard Enterprises, Šolak was the beneficial owner of the companies Gerrard Aircraft (Austria), Gerrard Aircraft Two (Austria), Gerrard Estate Holdings (Isle of Man), Gerrard Investments (Isle of Man), Eligo Bled (Slovenia), Royal Bled Golf Club (Slovenia), Hiša Plus (Slovenia), and Hiša Plus (Serbia).
Šolak also indirectly held majority shares ranging from 62 to 70 per cent in the following companies: Summer Parent (Luxembourg), EECF Istra (Luxembourg), Istra cement (Netherlands), Hotel Valkane (Croatia), MAX City (Croatia), Valbonaša Centar (Croatia), Kamp Banjole (Croatia), Istra VAL MAX nekretnine (Croatia), and Golf klub Sava (Serbia)...
Converted into euros, the total value of all United Group assets at that time was 3.28 billion euros. According to the company’s official financial report for the first half of 2020, the group had completed more than 100 acquisitions over the previous 20 years and, in the last year observed, had achieved a revenue of as much as 793 million euros. The same document showed that the company’s ownership structure, in varying proportions, included the funds BC Partners, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR), EBRD, and the management team, led by Šolak himself. His stake in Summer Parent (Luxembourg), the controlling company of United Group at that time, amounted to 34 per cent. Accordingly, the value of Šolak’s assets derived from United Group was measured at just over 1.11 billion euros.
Šolak also owns high-value property in Slovenia, where, to pursue his hobby, he purchased extremely valuable golf courses. Kurir’s 2022 investigation found that in the Slovenian company Eligo Bled, Šolak’s share amounted to 18.59 million euros; in the Royal Bled Golf Club, 1.1 million; in the company Hiša Plus, 5.9 million; while in the company of the same name registered in Serbia, he held three million euros. At that time, the founder of United Group also owned Golf Club Sava in Serbia, with a nominal book value of only 19,677 euros, of which 13,774 euros belonged personally to Šolak. He also owned, and likely still owns, golf courses of unknown value in Moravske Toplice and Belgrade.
Dragan Šolak’s property portfolio may have changed in the meantime, but the only thing that remains impossible to trace – and about which neither Šolak himself nor United Group wish to speak – is a clear explanation of where the owner has paid taxes on all the profits accumulated so far.
Kurir Editorial Team
