He’s probably the wealthiest man I have ever interviewed. He runs Canary Wharf, the renowned London business district, which is part of the world economic centre outshined only by New York. One can as well say he’s the one who designed and built Canary Wharf, contributing to Margaret Thatcher’s plan of exporting financial services worldwide. Canary Wharf’s president is a Romanian: George Iacobescu.
He often utters the word practically, giving away, without intent, the secret that brought him success. Mr. Iacobescu greets me at his 30th floor office, among the replicas of the region he has developed, while he’s explaining the area’s progress over the last 20 years. A second room and there’s another replica of the urbanite innovation, where the HSBC skyscraper is just a few inches taller than us. He points to the Crossrail, a project that will link East London with Heathrow airport, stating that his company made a better budget offer to the Government than the Government's own figures. In Romania, the Government would have probably won the project. He smiles: “It’s a different world”.
Crina Boros:There are still issues to be discussed about the economic crisis.
George Iacobescu: They cut down forests to write about it. I believe that such an economic crisis had never happened before. The entire mankind lives in the fear and surprise of this economic crisis. Practically, it will last for at least three or four years. It is only in 2011 that the values will begin to look familiar with their 2008 siblings.
CB: Why so late?
George Iacobescu: Because the system is experiencing a powerful blow. The mankind was not prepared for such a crisis and, practically, the financial institutions and systems need a year and a half to discover this crisis and to acknowledge what was happening. It has come a few days ago that the world’s bigge
