Marek Mikuśkiewicz, the founder of MarcPol, died on 20 July at the age of 76. He built a business that began with trading at the Różyckiego market in Warsaw and later became part of central Warsaw’s commercial landscape.
His rise and fall were starkly different. In 2010, his fortune was estimated at 3.9 billion zł, yet when bailiffs came to him he formally owned practically nothing and had a monthly salary of a little over 100 zł.
MarcPol and Warsaw in the 1990s
He opened the first private store in Poland in 1988, selling imported goods for dollars and other foreign currencies. Within two years, that store became MarcPol, the first grocery supermarket chain in Poland.
In 1993, he signed an agreement with the authorities of Warsaw to lease a large part of Plac Defilad and the adjoining underground parking lot. He also signed an agreement with PKP to commercialize the entire Dworzec Centralny along with the underground corridors.
Dworzec Centralny and Plac Defilad
In the 1990s, MarcPol put hundreds of stalls with clothing and electronics, plus dozens of small food outlets, inside Dworzec Centralny. The business later expanded to Śląsku, Poznaniu, Łodzi, Moskwie and Sofia, and the source says Mikuśkiewicz was among the richest Poles before the later collapse.
That collapse ended with his being described as a formal bankrupt and leaving about 700 creditors. He was also reported to owe money to Warsaw, PKP and E.Leclerc.
Marek Mikuśkiewicz in 2010
His death closes the account of a businessman who once controlled major commercial space in the center of Warsaw and later was reduced to a small salary and almost no assets. The unresolved part is the chain of business and legal events that took him from a 3.9 billion zł fortune to bankruptcy.
