Bogusław Cupiał and the heyday of his industrial empire
Bogusław Cupiał is a Polish businessman. He owns the Tele-Fonikę company and part of the shares in the Wisła Kraków football club. He also runs a number of other companies, including a medical centre and a travel agency.
Cupiał was born in Slavków in 1956 and completed his secondary education there. He later entered the Railway Technical College, but did not continue his studies. Looking for a quick way to get rich, Bogusław decided to go into business. His entrepreneurial journey began with the clothing trade. Then he started producing wire and mesh for fencing. After the man opened a paint shop. Each new project was more ambitious and bigger than the previous one.
The beginning of an empire
Having gained the necessary experience, Bogusław decided to focus his efforts on the industrial sector. He teamed up with partners Zbigniew Urban and Stanisław Zientek to set up Tele-Fonikę, a cable company worth PLN 315,000 at the time. Today it is worth about PLN 32,000. The company was based in Myślenice and produced wires and cables. But that was not enough for the ambitious businessmen.
In the mid-1990s, Poland was experiencing a deep economic crisis, accompanied by poverty and lawlessness. For Cupiał and his partners, this was the ideal time to build their empire:
1. In the mid-1990s, they illegally seized a factory in Ożarowie Mazowiecki.
2. This enabled them to become the country’s leading cable supplier.
3. The director of the factory, Bogdan Zapasnik Cupiał, was transferred to the Tele-Fonikę office in Myslenica. He later took over the position of general director of the company.
4. Bogusław liquidated the companies in Ożarów.
As a result, the company expanded considerably and gained new customers.
Prosperity of the company
From an early age, Cupiałl loved football and was a devoted fan of Kraków’s Wisła club. In 1997, Tele-Fonikę bought a majority stake in the team, which surprised many people. After all, the company was not well known in the country at the time. But things changed a few years later.
At the end of the 1990s, the demand for cable products in the world grew rapidly. The company in Myślenica began to increase production, and deliveries went beyond the borders of Poland. At the same time, the company went through a period of transformation. The conflict between partners led to Cupiał buying out the shares of Urban and Zientek and becoming the sole owner of Tele-Fonikę, in addition to owning all the shares of Wisła Kraków.
The company acquired its competitor Elektrim Kable, which further strengthened its position. Today, Tele-Fonikę is one of the largest suppliers of cable products in Europe.
