Mate Rimac is the owner and founder of the company “Rimac automobili”. His company “Rimac Group” is the majority owner of “Bugatti”, with a 55 percent stake in the company. He has 2,000 employees, production plants in four countries and the value of his company is estimated at 2.2 billion euros in 2022.
He gave an extensive interview to RTS in which, among other things, he talked a lot about his native Livno in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and the activities he is trying to promote the development of this region and stop the departure of young people.
”I don’t know why, I was born there in Livno, and it is very scattered in the villages. Very few people are from the city, but it’s always: ‘Which village are you from?‘. My village Listani, that is, my father’s village, is 25 kilometers from Livno. When I was born, there was macadam. There wasn’t even a real road. And, there were rarely cars, and my family has nothing to do with cars. But my parents say that, as soon as I was born, as a baby I wanted to be in the car and was interested in everything related to the car,” he said.
As soon as he started walking and talking, everything was always related cars.
”When I came to Germany, in Frankfurt there was a road, and suddenly there were so many new and beautiful cars. I was delighted. Later, throughout my life, I followed every Formula 1 race in Germany. I watched all those magazines on television. They had really good TV shows about cars. I was a big BMW fan. I never imagined that one day I might be an engineer there. That was my dream,” told Mate.
Namely, he and his friend founded the organization Linovate in Livno, in order to help people from his hometown to start a business more easily and to stay there.
”I feel calm here, it’s so nice. Although, of course, we who come from the outside see this area when it’s most crowded, when everyone comes from all over the world, because when it’s not that time, it’s empty here, unfortunately. When I see some old footage, I can’t believe how vivid it was, and when I hear stories from parents and older people. And, unfortunately, it completely turned around like many places in the former Yugoslavia after the war,” noted Mate.
As he says, so far he has invested 2.5 million euros in Linovate, or Livno, more precisely – in people who want to stay and start a business.
”The goal is for people to return, for people to come there to open their businesses, for the diaspora to have a reason to return,and that this place becomes alive and develop again, because it would be a shame if the city eventually dies completely, and every day it dies more and more,” he explained whileemphasizing that he wanted to make his contribution without the ambition to change the whole city or the path he took.
He pointed out that he doesn’t have unlimited funds and infinite contacts available to make a giant leap, but that, regardless of how everything turns out in 20-30 years, he had to at least try, Biznis Info reports.
E.Dz.
