On a sunny October day in Albania’s capital, Tirana, Samir Mane beams as he walks through his Tirana East Gate Mall, a 1.2 million square foot temple to capitalism with international brands ranging from Adidas and Swarovski to Burger King and KFC. The largest mall in Albania, it’s indistinguishable from the sprawling, glass-and-steel shopping complexes in any major European city—and that’s the point.

“This is our flagship asset. It’s 100% leased,” he boasts, rattling off a list of tenants, including apparel sellers H&M and Zara plus Albania’s first sushi restaurant and several of his own businesses, including a clothing retailer, a toy store and a consumer electronics chain. “People want to be able to touch the products. We have every tangible business in Albania.”

Dressed in a dark blue blazer over a black Lacoste polo, Mane could pass for one of the shoppers strolling around on a Monday morning. But the 57-year-old tycoon is Albania’s first—and only—billionaire, the richest person in this small Mediterranean country of just 2.8 million people. Thanks to his investments in retail, real estate and banking, he’s built a $1.4 billion fortune, per Forbes estimates, earning him a place on Forbes’ 2025 World’s Billionaires list. It’s not something he ever expected as a 23-year-old refugee fleeing Albania’s communist regime in 1991. "I never thought that was possible. My dream was to have my own house or to have a car,” he says.

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Now, his conglomerate BALFIN Group operates in 10 countries and recorded a net profit of $120 million on $880 million sales in 2024, up 31% and 14% from 2023, respectively. About 62% of revenues come from retail, followed by real estate with 20%, banking with 9% and logistics and asset management making up the rest. Mane owns all of it, but he has brought in partners in his malls, retail chains and real estate development projects.

His imprint is visible throughout Albania’s capital city, where he has lived since returning to his home country in 2005. He owns Tirana Bank, Albania’s fifth-largest bank; his Neptun electronics chain is the largest in the country; and he owned the largest supermarket chain until he sold it for $48 million in March. Riding through town in his black Mercedes-Maybach SUV, he points his driver towards Rolling Hills, a luxury residential complex he built where he also owns a 33,000-square-foot villa.

“I bought the land in 2008, it was very cheap at the time,” he says, looking out at an expanse of 153 neoclassical-style villas with views of the surrounding Skanderbeg mountains. Land values in the area have risen more than tenfold over that time, and Mane has kept building. Next door is another Balfin-owned development, Collina Verde, and Mane has another under construction by an artificial lake that’s expected to cost $240 million and will be complete in 2028.

“Nobody, not even my father, believed it would work.”

Mane’s fortune doesn’t stop at Albania’s borders. He owns retail stores throughout nearby Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and........

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