One of the capitalist foundation myths is that of a business created in a garage – and that is exactly how three friends started one of Poland’s most successful companies, the Atlas building materials group.

“We are an example of a new company that managed to clamber out of the ruins of the old system,” says Andrzej Walczak, one of Atlas’s founders and now one of Poland’s richest men, with an estimated wealth of 400m zlotys ($139m, ￡86m). “We started just like a classic American company.”

And just like many American millionaires, Mr Walczak, now 52, is handing day-to-day running of the company he helped create to a professional manager as he pursues a philanthropic interest outside the business. In his case, he is supporting an ambitious scheme to rebuild the heart of Lodz, 130km west of Warsaw and one of Poland’s most famous industrial cities.