Milan Mandaric

Milan Mandarić Milan Mandarić
Milan Mandarić at the Walkers Stadium on 30 July 2007
Born	Milan Mandarić (1938-09-05) 5 September 1938 (age 78) Gospić, Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Citizenship	American
Occupation	Retired

Milan Mandarić (Serbian Cyrillic: Милан Мандарић; born 5 September 1938) is a Serbian-American business tycoon who has owned a string of successful businesses and association football clubs, including Portsmouth, Leicester City and Sheffield Wednesday. He was born near Gospić, Kingdom of Yugoslavia (today Croatia), on 5 September 1938, and grew up in Novi Sad, Serbia.

Mandarić took control of his father's machine shop aged 21, and by the age of 26 had turned it into one of the largest businesses in the country. At the time Yugoslavia was a socialist country, but a relatively free one.

In 1969, worried by the Yugoslav government's view of his business, Mandarić left Yugoslavia and settled in the United States. He had to leave most of his fortune behind, and got a job for an American computer component manufacturer in California. When two of the senior managers left to start their own firm, Mandarić was invited to be their third partner. The firm was successful, but disagreements over manufacturing processes led to Mandarić leaving to form his own company, Lika Corporation, in 1971. In 1976, he became a naturalized citizen of the U.S. By 1976, Lika Corp. was the largest manufacturer of computer components in the U.S., and Mandarić was pioneering the boom that led to the creation of California's Silicon Valley. He sold the company to the Tandy Corporation in 1980 and set up a new company, Sanmina, which manufactured printed circuit boards. In 2001, the company acquired SCI Systems, a much larger competitor, becoming Sanmina-SCI Corporation. Mandarić also began branching out into investment banking operations, such as Behrman Capital. He also became owner of the St. Louis Storm, a Major Indoor Soccer League franchise which ceased operations in 1992 when the MISL also folded. He was ranked 1,049 in the times top 2,000 rich list, worth £75 million.