Portrait of Samir Mane, the first billionaire of the Balkans; from his early struggles as an immigrant in Vienna to the rise of Balfin Group and the transformation of Albania through his visionary approach beyond words.

From darkness to light, from stagnation to transformation, new eras often arise not from public cheers, but from the quiet steps of tireless visionaries. In the early 1990s, when Albania was waking up from half a century of ideological isolation, a quiet man from Korça, in Tirana, was dreaming beyond the limits of the time’s possibilities.

He sought neither attention nor fame; on the contrary, with stoic persistence and a philosophical belief that actions speak louder than words, he began to build his path to success, stone by stone. His story is a mosaic of ambitions and sacrifices, a modern tale that starts in the cobbled streets of a provincial town and ends at the peaks of international business.

Born in the late 1960s into a humble family from Korça, he grew up under the shadow of the communist regime, instilled with the values of hard work and knowledge. As a student at the University of Tirana, he studied geology, but history took a turn in 1991 when the system collapsed and new horizons opened. Like thousands of other young Albanians, he left for the West in search of a better life, arriving in Vienna as a political immigrant after the fall of the dictatorship.

Vienna welcomed him with open arms, but not with wealth. The young man from Korça found modest work as a translator to make a living, while his pocket held only the symbolic savings of the time. “I started with 100 dollars,” he would recall years later, an amount that speaks volumes about the challenges of starting a big dream. In the foreign metropolis, he experienced the contrast between the free market and the lack of everything in his homeland, an experience that would awaken his thirst for entrepreneurship.

In Vienna, alongside his work as a translator, he found time to develop a simple yet brilliant idea: free trade between two worlds. At that time, Albania suffered from a shortage of basic goods, such as televisions, refrigerators, and household appliances, while in Vienna, these items were abundant.

Armed with the intuition of a trader, the young man began buying electronic devices at low prices in Austrian markets and transporting them to sell in Tirana, where demand was high and people were willing to pay several times more.

Every television sold, every refrigerator distributed, was a small victory on the long road to success. It was a modest start, accompanied by long truck journeys and logistical challenges in a still-turbulent Balkans, but he did not back down.

This young man from Korça was named Samir Mane. In 1993, at just 26 years old, he took the first bold step toward formalizing his vision. He founded the company Alba-Trade in Vienna, while simultaneously opening the first "Neptun" store in Tirana, specializing in electronic devices.

The first Neptun store, filled with tape recorders, color televisions, and household appliances, quickly became a symbol of modernity for Albanian families emerging from isolation. Within a few years, "Neptun" grew into the largest electronics network in the country, and Samir Mane began to be seen as the pioneer of a new era in commerce.

His ambition knew no bounds. By the late 1990s, he expanded his business into neighboring post-communist markets, first in North Macedonia and then in Kosovo, turning Neptun into the first electronics network to span several countries in the Western Balkans.

As the new millennium began, Mane's vision expanded beyond electronics. He realized that Albania needed physical reconstruction as well, with modern spaces for commerce and entertainment.

In 2005, he opened the doors of the Univers Shopping Center (QTU), the first true shopping mall in Albania. For the first time, Albanian citizens experienced the concept of a modern center with branded stores, cinemas, cafes, and relaxing spaces—a novelty that revolutionized shopping.

That same year, Mane took another strategic step by founding the country’s first supermarket chain, Euromax, which quickly grew to become the largest in the market, bringing a culture of large-scale grocery shopping to Albania.

Thanks to these initiatives, weekends for Albanians began to shift towards shopping centers, changing the urban taste of the capital and major cities. Mane himself expressed pride in the fact that his businesses "changed the lifestyle of Albanians," as he saw families spending their free time in the spaces he had created.

The success of QTU sparked his appetite for even larger projects. In 2011, Mane inaugurated Tirana East Gate (TEG), the largest shopping center the country had seen up to that point, bringing dozens of international brands for the first time to the Albanian market.

With TEG, he set a new standard of luxury and service, solidifying his reputation as the man modernizing urban life. Meanwhile, his vision surpassed national borders.

In 2012, Samir Mane's BALFIN Group invested in North Macedonia by constructing Skopje City Mall, the largest shopping center in the country.

This move transformed Mane into a regional player, proving that his successful model could be effectively transplanted beyond Albania. After several years of successful operations, he sold this asset to a group of international investors in 2017, a move that demonstrated his savvy in turning the created value into capital for new ventures.

As he grew as the "king" of retail and real estate, Mane also set his sights on strategic sectors of the economy. In 2013, he entered the extraction and metallurgy industries by purchasing AlbChrome, a company that owned the chrome mines in Bulqiza, the mining heart of Albania.

Under the leadership of BALFIN Group, AlbChrome experienced a revival, with production increasing and the company becoming one of the leading ferrochrome producers in Europe. After a decade of success in this field, Mane completed one of his most high-profile transactions by selling AlbChrome to a Turkish conglomerate in 2022, a strategic exit that ensured a significant return on investment.

He also didn’t hesitate to embark on a similar venture beyond Albania’s borders. The Ferronikel plant in Drenas, Kosovo, once the industrial pride of the country, was collapsing under a mountain of debt. In 2018, BALFIN Group acquired NewCo Ferronikeli, taking on the task of reviving it.

With capital injection and visionary management, the plant resumed production, and within a few years, Ferronikeli became one of Kosovo’s leading export companies again. This was another example of Mane stepping in as a savior of struggling industries, transforming them into success stories.

The expansion of his empire also reached the financial sector. In 2019, BALFIN Group became the main shareholder of Tirana Bank, Albania's first private bank, marking the group's entry into the banking market. Samir Mane's empire now included everything, from shopping centers to mines, from supermarkets to banks, creating a complete business ecosystem.

His group now counts over 50 companies and operates in ten countries across Europe and America, with more than 5,000 employees, a scale that reflects its extraordinary impact on the regional economy. In 2025, he achieved another symbolic milestone. The prestigious magazine Forbes included Samir Mane in its list of global billionaires, making him the first Albanian in history to reach this status.

His wealth, valued at nearly $1.4 billion, confirmed him as the richest person in the Western Balkans, excluding Turkey and Greece. He holds this title with modesty, attributing his success to long-term vision and tireless work.

The marks of Samir Mane's vision have now crossed oceans. In recent years, he has expanded his investment portfolio into the United States, establishing "BALFIN Americas" for real estate projects across the Atlantic.

In various American cities, his group is investing in the development of residential and shopping centers, a move that demonstrates Mane’s ambition knows no geographical boundaries. Additionally, BALFIN Group has also expanded into Canada with its first real estate projects, transforming the Albanian company into a player with a presence in North American markets.

However, the heart of the entrepreneur remains strongly connected to Albania, especially to its stunning coastline. He has taken on some of the country’s largest tourism projects. On the shores of the Ionian Sea, in the pristine beaches of the south, Mane has built  Green Coast Resort, a luxury resort village in the Bay of Palasa.

This resort, designed with elegant villas, holiday apartments, and five-star hotels, represents the most ambitious tourism investment in Albania, valued at over 1 billion euros. Green Coast is setting new standards in elite tourism, attracting the attention of international architecture and travel magazines. Not surprisingly, Samir Mane himself refers to this complex as his “personal paradise” and has stated that Green Coast is the home of his heart, where he finds peace and inspiration away from the urban noise.

In his daily life, Samir Mane is known for his modesty and determination. He does not seek public attention but focuses on work and results. His days are split between offices in Tirana and Vienna, where he blends the dynamism of a Balkan capital with the elegance of an Austrian metropolis.

A dedicated family man, he finds time to relax with friends, but his main focus remains on the empire he has built, stone by stone. His meetings often last for hours, and every detail of the projects receives attention, as he believes in the importance of structure and discipline. "The bigger the company becomes, the less room there is for hiding or improvising," he says, emphasizing that strong structures are what keep a large business standing.

In fact, Mane considers the state as a kind of passive partner in business, as his company pays around 40 million euros in taxes annually to the state, and the entrepreneur says it is fair that “a large portion of the profit goes to the state, and this is normal.”

He is not afraid of fiscal transparency. "The bigger you grow, the harder it is to hide," he confidently states. He strives to cultivate a culture of correct tax payment across the entire group. His relationship with state institutions is one of mutual respect.

The state benefits from BALFIN Group’s activity in the form of taxes and jobs, while the company finds an environment where it can grow freely, without relying on favors or monopolies.

As a person with extraordinary economic influence, Samir Mane also sees himself as having a responsibility toward society. He established "Mane Foundation" to coordinate the corporation's social responsibility initiatives, helping in areas such as education, healthcare, environment, and the fight against poverty. For him, the role of business in society is not limited to generating profit, but also to giving back something to the community that has supported it on this journey. This philosophy is deeply rooted in the culture of BALFIN Group, which today serves as a model of success for new Albanian businesses.

The journey of Samir Mane, from his childhood in Korça to the peaks of global finance, is a testament to the power of vision and hard work. He started as an unknown young man with a backpack in a foreign land and transformed into one of the people shaping the new economic era of Albania.

With his characteristic calm and away from empty noise, Mane has shown that the greatest changes happen when words are set aside, and real work begins. In a region where the noise of politics often overshadows action, he is building a new era beyond public rhetoric. An era where the buildings, businesses, and institutions he has created speak for themselves, reflecting his vision and legacy.

His relationship with politics is neither warm nor cold. He understands that in a country like Albania, if you're too close to power, you absorb its failures. But if you're too distant, you can't touch the reality you want to change.

Therefore, he has chosen a measured approach. Neither conflict nor comfort. Because he knows that in this country, excessive closeness to politics brings its failures upon you, while extreme distance removes the chance to build the vision you wish to leave behind. He understands that true influence is not measured by the offices you frequent, but by the projects that endure even when the offices change.

(Source: Albanian Post)