From Small Fortunes to Billion-Dollar Ambitions: The Remarkable Journey of Filippo Ghirelli
In the sun-drenched principality of Monaco, Filippo Ghirelli gazes out at the Mediterranean from his office window, a fitting backdrop for a man whose life has been defined by global ventures and bold risks. At 45, this Italian entrepreneur has transformed himself from a civil engineer working on infrastructure projects in Guinea and Mali to a billionaire with a stake in one of India’s largest oil refineries. His journey reads like a modern business adventure – full of triumphs, setbacks, and an unwavering drive to build something meaningful. “After graduating from college in Rome, I left for Africa,” Ghirelli recounts, tracing the beginnings of his peripatetic career that would eventually lead him to amass a fortune estimated at $1.5 billion.
Ghirelli’s path to wealth wasn’t straightforward. He built a small fortune in real estate across Italy and North Africa in his late 20s, only to nearly lose everything during the Arab Spring upheaval in Egypt. The political instability forced him to abandon his projects and start anew in Italy – a significant setback that he views philosophically: “It was a significant loss, but also a fundamental lesson to continue building.” This resilience led him to pivot into energy efficiency, creating Genera Group, which partnered with clients like Pirelli and Unilever to implement cost-saving energy projects. The business model was clever – Genera would install improvements like solar panels or efficient lighting systems and then take a cut of the resulting cost savings. This venture proved successful enough that he sold a 49% stake to German asset management group IKAV in 2017, and later sold 75% to Swiss investment firm Susi Partners for an initial $30 million.
But it was India that transformed Ghirelli from millionaire to billionaire. In January 2023, he closed what he calls “a particularly fortunate” deal, acquiring a 25% stake in Nayara Energy – India’s second-largest oil refinery – from Singapore-based oil trading giant Trafigura. The numbers are staggering: Ghirelli purchased the stake for $169 million, a 42% discount to what Trafigura had paid in 2017. Today, that same stake is estimated to be worth at least $1.1 billion. The timing proved fortuitous, as India increased imports of discounted Russian oil following the Ukraine invasion, and Nayara’s profits soared by 500% between 2022 and 2025. The refinery, which includes India’s largest privately-owned network of gas stations and a deep-water port, has become a strategic asset in India’s growing economy, where fuel demand continues to rise.
The refinery investment hasn’t been without complications. In July, the European Union imposed sanctions on Nayara due to the involvement of Russian state-owned Rosneft, which owns a majority stake alongside Ghirelli and Moscow-based investment firm UCP. This briefly led to operational disruptions, with banks halting payments, Microsoft cutting cloud services, and key oil suppliers from Iraq and Saudi Arabia suspending exports. Yet Nayara demonstrated remarkable resilience, quickly pivoting to source virtually all its oil from Russia and finding new export markets including Brazil, Sudan, and Turkey. Ghirelli remains unfazed by the sanctions: “The company essentially lives on the Indian market. It would have been a problem if their product was sold in Europe, but since it’s practically a local market it hasn’t had any impact on the company’s performance.” Reports suggest both Saudi Aramco and Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance have shown interest in acquiring Nayara, potentially at valuations that would deliver Ghirelli a 500% gain on his investment.
Rather than resting on his laurels, Ghirelli is already looking beyond Nayara to his next ambitious venture. In 2024, he launched Infracorp, an investment firm with a breathtakingly diverse portfolio spanning private airports, space technology, energy transition, and artificial intelligence. “The objective is to invest in systemic infrastructure,” he explains with characteristic enthusiasm. His first major acquisition is Riviera Airport, a private jet terminal on Italy’s northwestern coast that he plans to transform into a premier aviation hub serving wealthy Monaco residents and the first of a planned network of 16 private airports throughout Europe. Fellow Monaco-based billionaire Manfredi Lefebvre d’Ovidio sees enormous potential in this strategy: “Commercial airports are becoming more difficult to access for private jets, and private flights are increasing and will keep growing as new technologies bring down their cost.”
What sets Ghirelli apart from other wealthy investors is the audacity of his vision. Beyond conventional infrastructure, he’s investing in waste-to-energy plants, biomethane facilities, data centers, and even more futuristic concepts like orbital space stations and offshore nuclear reactors. His advisors, who include industry experts across these diverse fields, describe him as a multi-dimensional chess player who combines European engineering expertise with American risk-taking. “He has a bit of an American mindset where he’s willing to take risks. He has the ability to pivot at the right time,” notes Massimiliano Ladovaz, CEO of spaceflight tech firm SpinLaunch. When asked about funding these grand ambitions, Ghirelli displays the confidence that has carried him through previous setbacks: “When you have a business model with foreseeable cash flow, it’s pretty easy to find money.” While it’s far too early to judge whether his latest ventures will match the extraordinary return on his Nayara investment, one thing is certain – Filippo Ghirelli’s remarkable journey from civil engineer to space-age infrastructure visionary is still unfolding, with potentially his boldest chapters yet to come.
