You're reading: #33 Richest: Oleksandr Gerega, 50

$400 million Married with one son Interests: home improvement, retail sales

When Oleksandr Gerega opened his new DIY (do it yourself) hypermarket Epicenter late last year, he had plenty of reason to think that he’d done something important and big.

The newly opened Epicenter covers an area of 56,000 square meters which, according to the Book of Ukrainian Records, made it the largest store of its kind in the world.

Many people holding such enormous property would stop and take it easy, but obviously that’s not for Herega.

This year he added three more stores to his DIY network, which he founded together with his wife Halyna back in 2003, to make it 27 in total. Such expansion is easily explained: The crisis forced many middle-class Ukrainians to save on construction costs and renovate their homes themselves.

Even by the most conservative forecasts, the market of construction materials and home improvement tools is set to start growing no later than early 2011, which makes the timing for Epicenter’s expansion nearly perfect.

The entry into the market of French retail giant Leroy Merlin, which by the end of 2011 plans to have at least two DIY hypermarkets in Ukraine, shouldn’t worry the Gerega family so much.

After all, building the world’s largest DIY store took only six months, so as long as Ukrainians continue home improvements, their market leadership is safe.