The listing of the telecom group RCS&RDS in London will put a spotlight on Romania's second billionaire - Zoltan Teszari, 37, the main shareholder of the group. Romania's first ever billionaire is businessman Ion Tiriac.

According to several sources on the investment market, the RCS&RDS group is worth 1.5 to 2 billion dollars, taking into account projections for 2007 and the development outlook for the next few years. There are also more optimistic estimates, which place the value of the telecom group at over 2.5 billion dollars (almost 2 billion euros).

According to data from the Trade Registry, the main shareholder of the RCS&RDS group is Cable Communications Systems N.V., which is registered in the Netherlands and holds 94.15%. Teszari directly holds 9% of RCS&RDS, according the data. Sources from the market also say that he is the majority shareholder of Cable Communications Systems.

This spring, RCS&RDS announced turnover worth over 300 million dollars for 2006. Sources from the telecom market believe the group's EBITDA exceeds 120 million dollars.

Zoltan Teszari is an extremely discreet businessman based in Oradea, who has never formally appeared in the press. There are no pictures of him available on the Internet or from the local press. He first entered the business world in 1990 with an ice cream cart producing cones and concentrated flavours and later entered the cable television business, then at a burgeoning stage of development and which has since seen booming growth.

According to the local press in Oradea, he was a judo athlete and at one stage became European vice-champion. He is generally considered to be quite a cautious businessman. Although he has had several offers to sell the RCS&RDS business, with the best-known candidate being the German giant Deutsche Telekom, Teszari has not surrendered control of his operati