Bogoljub Karić

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Bogoljub Karić listen (help·info) (Serbian: Богољуб Карић, IPA: ['bɔgɔʎub 'ka:riʨ]) is a businessman and politician from Serbia.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Youth

Born on January 17, 1954 in Peć, Kosovo, Serbia, FPR Yugoslavia, to parents Janićije Karić and Danica Kuzmanović, Bogoljub completed elementary (grades 1-8) and high school (grades 9-12) in his hometown. He graduated in Geography from Prirodno-matematički fakultet (Science college) in Priština. He got his Master's Degree in economy at University of Niš.

Bogoljub Karic grew up in a large family of 5 children. He has three older brothers: Sreten, Dragomir, and Zoran, as well as a younger sister Olivera.

[edit] Business

President of the Association of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Serbia and Montenegro Founder of the BK (Astra) Group Mr. Bogoljub Karić has created during the last two decades probably one of the most successful and largest privately owned multinational companies in Eastern Europe, covering numerous industry sectors.

The history of the family is documented and dates back 400 years, having an established history and tradition of hand-craft, manufacturing and trade.

Taking advantage of the relative liberalisation in Yugoslavia in the early seventies and the allowing of opening of small workshops with no more than ten employees, Mr. Bogoljub Karić, then a student, re-established the workshop of his ancestors, together with his three brothers and sister. This metal factory that was established in the early seventies quickly transcended these confines and became the first real private business venture in Yugoslavia. It is from this very small manufacturing company that Mr. Karić has built a business empire which today has a yearly turnover expressed in billions of dollars.

During a period of two decades, Karić formed one of the largest privately owned corporations in Central and Eastern Europe. In the mid-eighties he moved his business activities from Peć to Belgrade and then continued to expand into new markets in Russia and CIS countries, Western Europe, North and South America and Asia. The BK or Astra Group was especially successful in Russia and the CIS, where it quickly became one of the major privately owned groups and where it has built millions of square meters of office space, banks, hospitals, factories, roads, bridges. Also Karić founded and chaired the first private bank in Yugoslavia, the first two private TV stations, the most important Internet provider and has introduced mobile telephony in Serbia, through the company “Mobtel”, which he founded in 1994 and which is today the second most important mobile telephony provider in Serbia.

Karić has pioneered new technologies in Serbia, thus promoting its modernization and his companies have always offered the most modern state-of the art services to the citizens of Serbia.

The Astra (BK) Group is composed of the following industry sectors:

  • manufacturing, civil engineering and constructing
  • International wholesales export-import trading
  • Telecommunications and electronic media (GSM and NMT mobile telephony, internet services, alphanumeric paging)
  • Banking and finance
  • Media which includes television, radio, magazines and newspapers
  • Science and education (Karić is the founder and owner of BK University, the first private university in Yugoslavia, with Faculties of Management, Trade and Banking, Sport, and Art Academy; this University has partnerships with several universities in Russia and Europe. The University includes a number of Scientific Institutes with wide scientific and research activities: Institute for Strategic Planning, Institute for Management, Institute for Marketing, Institute for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises)
  • Charitable activities (the BK Foundation organises numerous activities that provide funding for essential humanitarian aid in Yugoslavia, Europe and other countries world-wide. It is focused on helping children, refugees and provides scholarships for disadvantaged and talented students. The activities of the Foundation are also centered on the promotion of cultural values.

Karić initiated two years ago the creation of the Association of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Yugoslavia, the first true association of private businessmen in Yugoslavia set up since World War II.

[edit] Education and Science Work

Karić frequently lectures as a visiting professor in several faculties in the country and abroad. Many of these lectures are published in various magazines. He is author of many books which focus on analysis of Private Business, Finance and Financial Management.

[edit] Political and Social Activities

Karić is very active in domestic and international social and political circles. He has a strong reputation in the highest political institutions worldwide and has met with many Heads of State, Presidents, Senators, influential businessmen of the worlds most significant companies, media, humanitarian and other non-government organizations and institutions.

The philosophies that Karić expresses in these meetings are based on the need for development of relationship between people irrespective of ethnic origin, protection of human rights as foundation for democracy and economic development of all countries around the world. He is also actively promoting the democratic processes in Yugoslavia and for the integration of Yugoslavia, or Serbia and Montenegro, as the new state union is now called, in the European integrations, as well as other international organizations and institutions.

The goals of these activities are to turn the Balkans, i.e. the South East Europe region into a prosperous region of Europe, and the prerequisites are, according to Karić, to ensure the dominant role of economy and economic cooperation, that are the sole factors that can counter nationalistic policies and confrontation. It is with that goal in mind that Karić and his companies have started many programs of cooperation with Kosovo and all other regions of Serbia with ethnically mixed population, as well as intensive contacts with neighbours, such as Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, etc.

Karić ran for President of Serbia in the June 2004 Presidential Election, polling nearly 20% of the vote. His message was on the supremacy of economy over politics, the need to fundamentally transform Serbian society into a modern European democracy and revitalise its economy.

Karić subsequently formed and registered his political party Serbian Strength Movement (MSS) which participated in the local elections of September 2004. At these elections, the MSS, although formed barely a month before the elections, had a surprisingly good showing, establishing itself firmly in the center of the democratic bloc of political forces in Serbia. Its representatives, in coalition with other democratic forces are part of many municipal councils (including that of the capital Belgrade), and it has several deputies and ministers in the Provincial Government of the Autonomous Province of Voivodina.

[edit] Karic family

Karić rarely fails to mention his own family in public appearances, often openly using it as a political prop.

[edit] Immediate family

  • Milanka Babić - wife of Bogoljub Karić. Born in Peć and raised, as she says "in patriotic spirit and traditional system of values". She finished Law School and is one of the founders as well as the president of Karić Foundation. She recorded a compact disk Bistrica, singing Serbian traditional roots-folk songs. She and Bogoljub have 4 children - a son and three daughters:
  • Nebojša Karić (born in 1979).
  • Nadežda Neda Karić (1981).
  • Jelena Karić (1982).
  • Danica Karić (1985). Has recorded 3 albums with her cousin Danijela, they have been singing from 1998 and have been successful in their music ventures. [www.dnd.co.yu] They both played numerous piano concerts and won numerous piano competitions in their youth. Danica is married to the Serbian singer Daniel Djokic.

[edit] Extended family

[edit] Sreten Karić

He is the oldest brother of Bogoljub Karić. He has three children with his current wife and a son from a previous marriage. Together with his current wife he reportedly runs the Karić family businesses in Cyprus.

  • Dubravka Safner - Sreten's first wife, Karić has used her Croatian ethnicity in various political soundbites as supposed proof of his family's openness to different nationalities. She gave birth to Sreten's first son:
  • Goran Karić (born 1974), recently married Ivana Mišković, the only child of another Serbian tycoon Miroslav Mišković.
  • Slavica Grbović - Sreten's current wife. According to her official bio she performed various non-specified duties in the Karic Foundation until 1992, when she and Sreten moved to Cyprus. She gave birth to 3 children:
  • Bojan Karić (1979) - His claim to fame was the on-again off-again relationship with turbofolk star Jelena Karleuša. They married in September 2004 but got divorced only 4 months later. The entire episode inspired a tabloid feeding frenzy in Serbia, especially when reports of Karleuša being despised by Bojan's mother Slavica hit the press. The whole thing went on for so long that even the family patriarch Bogoljub felt obliged to chime in on the issue.[1] Three years later, on July 25, 2007, Bojan Karic got married to Maša Nikolić. She is highly educated, from well known and respected family, with the successful business career. Maša is granddaughter of the famous ambassador Vladimir Rolović, daughter of the renowned movie director and cinematographer Bozidar Nikolić, being herself quite successful businesswoman, Head of Real Estate department in Rudnap Group - one of the most successful companies in the Balkan region. Bojan and Maša are expecting twins in early winter.
  • Gordana Karić (1982)
  • Stefan Karić (1985) - He came in the news for the first time after crashing a BMW (owned by his older brother Bojan) into a lamp post in Belgrade's elite neighbourhood of Dedinje on April 25, 2005. The only other passenger in the car Stanislava Pavlović was severely injured. Stefan was found to have been intoxicated and driving at speed of 148km/h at the time of the accident. On June 6, 2007, Second Municipal Court in Belgrade sentenced Stefan Karić to one year in prison of which he did not serve. Speculation of payments to government officials was suspected for some time, however, the Karic Family denies such allegations[2]

[edit] Dragomir Karić

Another Bogoljub Karić's brother and one of his closest associates. He is the driving force behind the operations in Russia, and has made a fortune in Russia after moving there in 1987. Married, has four children and seven grandchildren.

  • Hafa Mulić - Dragomir's wife is a Bosniak. She was a 17-year-old Pop Singer when they met in Livno, Herzegovina. They met when Dragomir's band and his brothers performed there and persuaded her to join their band Blue Stars. She married Dragomir the same year they met, released a number of CDs, and gave birth to 4 children:
  • Sasha D. Karić (1971)
  • Simon Karić (1974)
  • Jugoslav Karić (1979)
  • Danijela Karić Martać (1984)

[edit] Zoran Karić

One more Bogoljub Karić's sibling who runs his brother's business in Vienna. Some of his time is spent in London. His wife wrote a cookbook with traditional Kosovan recipes. Also married and has four children.

  • Jefimija Karić Radenović
  • Ana Karić
  • Vladan Karić
  • Dusan Karić

[edit] Olivera Karić

The only sister of Bogoljub Karić. She works in the Karić Foundation and in BK University. Since 1995 she lives between London and Belgrade. Married, has three children.

  • Aleksandra Nedeljković
  • Aleksandar Nedeljković
  • Gorica Nedeljković

[edit] References