Zygmunt Solorz-Żak
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Zygmunt Solorz (; born Zygmunt Józef Krok, August 4, 1956 in
Radom Radom is a city in east-central Poland, located approximately south of the capital, Warsaw. It is situated on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship. Radom is the fifteenth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest in its province w ...
) is a Polish businessman and a media tycoon known for launching Polsat, one of the largest private television channels in the country. As of 2024, he is the fifth richest person in Poland and has repeatedly appeared on ''
Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...
''' ranking of the world's billionaires, with an estimated net worth around €5.77 billion. He ranked #688 on the ''
Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...
'' 2016 with a net worth of
US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...
2.5 billion. The companies controlled by him include Cyfrowy Polsat, Polkomtel, Netia, Elektrim and Interia.


Biography


Early life

According to the media, Zygmunt Solorz was born in
Radom Radom is a city in east-central Poland, located approximately south of the capital, Warsaw. It is situated on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship. Radom is the fifteenth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest in its province w ...
, a city to the south of
Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
, and originally had the surname ''Krok''. In 1977 he escaped the
Polish People's Republic The Polish People's Republic (1952–1989), formerly the Republic of Poland (1947–1952), and also often simply known as Poland, was a country in Central Europe that existed as the predecessor of the modern-day democratic Republic of Poland. ...
while on a holiday trip and settled in Munich, in the then
West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...
. In the 1980s, he took the surname ''Solorz'' after his first wife for
feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...
reasons. Several years later, after the second marriage, he added the hyphen and became ''Solorz-Żak''. He currently uses just ''Solorz'' as his only surname. In his early twenties, he managed to escape closed-off Poland and got to Germany, where he founded a transport company.


Businesses

His first major investment on the Polish media market was purchasing the majority stake in the ''Kurier Polski'' daily newspaper in early 1992. The same year, Solorz launched the free-to-air commercial TV channel Polsat, broadcast through satellite, and obtained a national commercial television license in 1993. Since the middle of the 1990s, Polsat has remained one of Poland's biggest television stations. His key assets also include the pay TV platform Cyfrowy Polsat. He holds controlling stakes in the pension fund PTE Polsat, small life insurer Polisa and retail bank Invest Bank. After winning control over the distressed Elektrim conglomerate, Solorz obtained operating control over the
lignite Lignite (derived from Latin ''lignum'' meaning 'wood'), often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, combustible sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35% and is considered the lowest ...
power plant PAK, ranked among the three largest electricity producers in Poland. He has owned the
Śląsk Wrocław Wrocławski Klub Sportowy Śląsk Wrocław Spółka Akcyjna, commonly known as WKS Śląsk Wrocław (), is a Polish professional Association football, football club based in Wrocław that plays in , the second level of the Polish football leagu ...
football club since 2008 and the Polish mobile phone company Polkomtel since 2011. At the turn of the millennium, he owned three television channels in the Baltic states, TV1 in Estonia, LNT in Latvia and BTV in Lithuania. In 2017, his Cyfrowy Polsat acquired telecomminications company Netia, which owns the second-largest fixed-line cable television and broadband network in Poland. In 2019, ZE PAK Capital Group, a company controlled by Solorz, initiated a collaboration with the Korean company KHNP concerning the potential construction of
small modular reactor The small modular reactor (SMR) is a class of small nuclear fission reactor, designed to be built in a factory, shipped to operational sites for installation, and then used to power buildings or other commercial operations. The term SMR refers t ...
s on the site of the Pątnów Power Station. He also established the Czysta Polska Foundation, which is concerned with the promotion of ecology and
environmental protection Environmental protection, or environment protection, refers to the taking of measures to protecting the natural environment, prevent pollution and maintain ecological balance. Action may be taken by individuals, advocacy groups and governments. ...
. The same year, Cyfrowy Polsat became a shareholder in Poland's biggest IT company Asseco while in 2020, the group bought the web portal Interia.


Controversy


Allegations of collaboration with SB

In a statement sent to the Polish Press Agency in 2006, Solorz admitted that in 1983 he signed a commitment to collaborate with the 1st Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He was registered as an agent of the Communist-era Security Service ( Polish: ''Służba Bezpieczeństwa'', SB) from 18 October 1983 to 26 June 1985 under the alias TW ''Zeg''. According to Solorz, he was blackmailed by the Security Service and made this decision in order to avoid getting arrested for his illegal stay in Germany. He further added that he didn't take any active role in this collaboration and as a result didn't harm anybody. The Security Service delisted him from its registry after 1.5 years describing him as "useless".


Intrafamilial conflict

In October 2024, Solorz removed his two sons, Tobias Solorz and Piotr Żak, from the supervisory board of the power producer ZE PAK. In October, the shareholders of Cyfrowy Polsat also backed the company's founder and voted to dismiss Tobias Solorz and lawyer Jarosław Grzesiak from the company's supervisory board. The conflict between Solorz and his children concerns the succession to his conglomerate. According to Paweł Rymarz, the lawyer representing Solorz's children Tobias, Piotr and Agnieszka, the succession had already been completed. On 2 August 2024, Solorz allegedly signed a notarial declaration granting them a joint control over the TiVi Foundation and Solkomtel. However, one day after the signing of this document Solorz reportedly changed his mind and decided to withdraw from that decision. His children claim that his current wife, Justyna Kulka, is behind this and accuse her of exerting excessive influence over their father's decisions.


Personal life

In 1983, he married Ilona Solorz, a Polish expatriate living in Germany who originally came from
Silesia Silesia (see names #Etymology, below) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Silesia, Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at 8, ...
. He has a son Tobias with her. The couple divorced in 1991. From 1992 to 2014, his second wife was Małogrzata Żak with whom he has son Piotr and daughter Aleksandra. In 2022, he divorced his third wife, Małgorzata Nawrocka. In 2024, he married his fourth wife Justyna Kulka.


See also

*
Michał Sołowow Michał Sołowow (born 11 July 1962) is a Polish billionaire businessman and rally driver. His industrial group has 18 production plants in eight countries and sells products in more than 60 countries on six continents and has over 16,000 emplo ...
* Jan Kulczyk * Economy of Poland


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Solorz, Zygmunt 1956 births 20th-century Polish businesspeople 21st-century Polish businesspeople Living people Businesspeople from Warsaw Polish billionaires Polish business executives Polish chief executives Polish company founders Polish mass media owners People from Radom