Sanctions after the invasion of Ukraine sent tanker values soaring, boosting the fortunes of these Greek maritime moguls to record highs and minting at least seven new 10-figure fortunes.
Forbes estimates there are now at least 12 shipping billionaires in Greece, more than at any other time in history. Seven of them are making their debut in Forbes’ billionaire ranks. They are worth a collective $32 billion—the equivalent of roughly 12% of the country’s gross domestic product.
These tycoons are the latest in a line of swashbuckling pioneers hailing back to iconic figures like Aristotle Onassis and Stavros Niarchos, who launched the global oil tanker trade after World War II and became famous for their glamorous marriages and lifestyles. This newer group has been in shipping for decades but kept a lower profile. (Despite their success, none would speak to Forbes, while their representatives either declined to comment or did not respond.)
Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2024/05/13/meet-the-greek-shipping-billionaires-getting-rich-off-russian-oil/?sh=6323b9ce74f1
0:00 Introduction
0:24 Greece's Presence In The Shipping Industry
2:46 How Has Greece Made So Much Revenue With Shipping
6:59 How Onassis and Niarchos Reached 10 Figure Status
12:44 Tax Sanctions And Where It Applies In Greece
15:20 How Long Will Greece's Shipping Boom Last
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Forbes estimates there are now at least 12 shipping billionaires in Greece, more than at any other time in history. Seven of them are making their debut in Forbes’ billionaire ranks. They are worth a collective $32 billion—the equivalent of roughly 12% of the country’s gross domestic product.
These tycoons are the latest in a line of swashbuckling pioneers hailing back to iconic figures like Aristotle Onassis and Stavros Niarchos, who launched the global oil tanker trade after World War II and became famous for their glamorous marriages and lifestyles. This newer group has been in shipping for decades but kept a lower profile. (Despite their success, none would speak to Forbes, while their representatives either declined to comment or did not respond.)
Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2024/05/13/meet-the-greek-shipping-billionaires-getting-rich-off-russian-oil/?sh=6323b9ce74f1
0:00 Introduction
0:24 Greece's Presence In The Shipping Industry
2:46 How Has Greece Made So Much Revenue With Shipping
6:59 How Onassis and Niarchos Reached 10 Figure Status
12:44 Tax Sanctions And Where It Applies In Greece
15:20 How Long Will Greece's Shipping Boom Last
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com
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Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 Western sanctions on Russian oil sent tanker values soaring and helped boost the fortunes of Greek shippers to new highs.
00:07 Forbes now counts a record 12 Greek shipping billionaires seven of them making their debut for the first time.
00:13 Hi everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis with Forbes breaking news. Joining me now is my Forbes colleague Giacomo Tonini. Giacomo thanks so much for joining me.
00:23 Thanks for having me today. You wrote about Greek shipping magnates who have become billionaires in the industry.
00:29 As you pointed out in your reporting Greece has always had a presence in the shipping industry but there's been a boom really in the past
00:35 few years. So can you talk about why. So Greece has a really long history with shipping going back centuries. Obviously that's due to its
00:44 location right along strategic trade routes and in the Mediterranean close to the Black Sea as well. And one really important point for Greek
00:53 shipping today is after the Second World War really the pioneers of oil tankers and trading oil by sea were Greek shippers. You know
01:02 famous names like Aristotle Anastas right which everyone knows. And they've really been able to continue that leading position for decades since the
01:11 1950s and 40s. And today we have you know a lot of you know some of the largest shipping firms in the world are Greek not just with tankers but
01:19 sort of looking across different types of ships and shipping. So why were they able to capitalize so much so more than anyone else. What are
01:27 they shipping. So if you look at the sort of global shipping fleet the largest sort of size of fleet is owned by Greek companies. They they're
01:38 also the value of their sort of combined fleet owned by Greeks is around 150 billion. According to data for 2022 it's the largest in the world.
01:48 They own the largest fleet of oil tankers the largest fleet of liquefied natural gas carriers. But it's also if you look at bulk shipping. So
01:57 that's kind of like any other commodity. They're the largest. It really goes sort of across everything. And they benefit from obviously like
02:07 the history and the strategy we've talked about. A lot of them are privately owned companies family owned that have been in this for
02:14 generations. So they have a long history of knowing how to go around the business. They're also sort of very smart about when to buy new
02:22 ships and sell them and timing the market. It's really sort of this institutional knowledge and the history of shipping in the country
02:29 that has helped them sort of solidify this over the years. And it's not just sort of a couple firms. It's you know dozens of companies.
02:36 Obviously some are much larger than others but it's a really important part of the Greek economy. And and on a global scale they've
02:44 managed to keep this position. And can you talk about specifically what they are shipping that's making them so rich. It's all kinds of
02:51 things. I think a lot of the focus in the last couple of years has been on oil obviously with the disruption caused by the Russian
02:57 invasion of Ukraine and then the subsequent Western sanctions and specifically with oil. There is a price cap on Russian oil imposed by
03:06 Western countries. So Russian oil can be traded. But to you know if you're following this Western price cap it can't be traded above
03:15 sixty dollars per barrel. And then there's other price caps for other oil products like diesel fuel oil.
03:20 Obviously non you know countries that aren't in the West and companies that are based in the West don't have to follow that. Greek
03:28 companies do. So the focus has really been on oil. But like I was saying before you know a lot of other commodities. So you know you
03:38 can look at grain iron or things that we don't really tend to think about a lot but that are really important to the global economy.
03:46 If you look also container shipping. So like during the pandemic right when everyone is ordering stuff from home they're really you
03:53 know the Greeks are really active across the board in shipping. Our billionaires list came out in April and one of the most
03:59 interesting sidebars was that the war in Ukraine where it's making some of the ultra wealthy even wealthier. And as you pointed out
04:07 Russia faced sanctions after waging its war on Ukraine. So did these ship owners hesitate to carry Russian oil at all once the war
04:14 was launched. And what changed their minds because now they are carrying it. So it really depends on who you're looking at.
04:21 One of the wealthiest person in Greece according to our list Marie Angelou who says she came out soon after the invasion saying they
04:29 would not carry any Russian oil. This is before the sanctions and before the price cap I mentioned. And other firms said that they
04:38 wouldn't. And then actually did. And it's important to note first of all that it is not illegal under Western sanctions to trade
04:46 Russian oil. You have to follow this price cap. And as long as you do it is legal to do so. Because when the West imposed this the
04:53 idea was to impose an economic cost on Putin but to not sort of cause a huge problem for the global oil market. And so a lot of
05:05 Greek ship shipping firms do and did trade Russian oil according to an analysis by the Kiev School of Economics KFC Institute that
05:15 we've been looking at a lot. If you look at between early 2022 and the spring of this year Greek firms shipped close to 30
05:26 percent of all Russian oil exports over that period. And that's the second out of any country. The number one is the UAE. But those
05:34 firms were firms that are set up there but owned by the Russian state owned oil company. So if you're looking at sort of outside of
05:40 Russia the Greeks are the largest shippers. And over that time period if you look at sort of the top five companies that ship the
05:47 most Russian oil three out of five are Greek. So it really varies. Some of the larger companies said not to do it and haven't done it
05:54 really. Others sort of really really did take that opportunity to ship the Russian oil. In your story you have a quote from that
06:02 someone said at an event that kind of talked about the ethical dilemma people were facing ship owners in particular. Can you talk
06:08 about that. Yeah I think the quote you're referring to is sort of looking at you know the fact that this war is a tragedy but it
06:15 opens up opportunities. And when they elaborate on it this was George Broca Pugh at shipping conference in the summer of 2022 that.
06:24 To sort of explain it simply before the war most Russian oil went to Europe. It was traded largely by pipeline some by ships. What
06:34 happened after that when the EU banned Russian oil. All that all had to go somewhere. And a lot of it was redirected to India
06:41 largely and also to China. And so if you think about it right like getting oil from the northern part of Russia like the Baltic Sea
06:48 all the way to India takes I think like around 25 days. It's a much much longer journey. So that means for a shipper they can make a
06:56 lot more money on that journey. Right. Because it's 25 days now. It also means that if you're doing that a lot. OK. Now means you
07:04 have fewer tankers because a lot of them are busy on those journeys. And so what happened was this sort of kind of like
07:10 reoriented the whole tanker industry in the world. And two impacts are important to keep note of. One is it sent the value of
07:20 tankers soaring because there was a huge demand. So it sent the prices of new tankers to sort of record highs. And another thing
07:31 it had that happened was there was just a sort of large need for tanker. So older tankers say like 15 10 to 15 years old which
07:39 before might have been scrapped because they weren't really needed. They were older now have a lot of use or half had over the
07:44 last two years. And so resale prices went through the roof to sort of record highs.
07:49 And related to that price gap I mentioned before a lot of these companies in obscure places started popping up that would buy
07:58 these old tankers for sort of really high prices and then trade Russian oil in violation of that price cap. Not the Greeks.
08:05 These are sort of other companies but they were buying these ships from a lot of people including the Greeks. And so that's an up
08:12 the value of old tankers up. So if you're a Greek ship owner or really any ship owner regardless of whether you're trading
08:17 Russian oil you've seen that the value of your own ships has gone up. You can get rid of older ships for you know way more I
08:26 think more than double the price you would have gotten before the war. And that's really what we're we're looking at in this
08:32 story is that you know none of these you know new billionaires that we're putting on and talking about are you like they've
08:39 been in the industry for decades. But the value of their fleets their tankers and also their other ships has gone up
08:45 tremendously in the last two years. So let's talk about specifically who these shippers are who these new billionaires are
08:53 and how much their net worths are. So we looked at 13 Greek shipping billionaires. You know they're they range from. And
09:02 this is you know generally speaking in Greece the wealthiest is Maria Angelou. Who says you mentioned before. She was already
09:10 on our list from a couple of years ago but she's worth more this year. You know 2024 world's billionaires list. We also have
09:16 eight new entries this year from Greek shipping. Also one who's returning after you know since 2008 was last time they were
09:26 on the list. And collectively we think they're worth more than 30 billion dollars and that's more than 12 percent of the
09:34 Greek GDP. So largely this is composed of the value of their fleets. But as I think we're going to talk about you know they
09:43 also invested in all kinds of different industries over time. So we will talk about that shortly but talk about first what the
09:50 local incentives are for these Greek shippers. Yes. So it's interesting. Like we said before Greece has a really long history
09:56 in shipping. And there is you know there's a lot of incentives for Greek ship owners to make sure that they would stay in the
10:04 country and not sort of move their companies elsewhere. And so there's actually an article that was enshrined in Greece's
10:09 constitution in the 50s that exempts ship owners from you know income tax from the income from their shipping companies.
10:18 Instead they pay what's called a tonnage tax which is basically a tax based on the size of their ships like how much they can
10:23 carry which means that generally speaking they're able to you know it's it's a really advantageous tax system for them. And in
10:35 two years ago in 2022 the Greek government also passed a new law that reduced the voluntary tax on their dividend and capital
10:44 gains from shipping companies down to 5 percent from 10 percent. So you know as long as they keep a management office in
10:54 Greece they can take advantage of these these tax benefits. So these rules really must be music to Greek shippers ears. I
11:03 mean it sounds like a really good time to be a Greek shipper right now obviously. So how are they spending this virtually tax
11:09 free money. So they you know some of them do just sort of stay within shipping. Others have really gone into other directions.
11:17 So for example the three most successful soccer teams in Greece Olympiacos Panathinaikos and Athens are all owned by Greek
11:26 ship owners as well. Also if you look at internationally Evangelos Maranakis who owns Olympiacos he also owns a team in
11:35 the English Premier League and has recently invested in a soccer team in Portugal. Outside of that some of the largest media
11:44 conglomerates in Greece TV channels and newspapers are also owned by Greek shipping billionaires. And you know that's looking at
11:52 sort of media and sports right which we know billionaires all over the world regardless of their industry like to invest in.
11:59 And then also on the personal side you know some of these shipping billionaires have enormous real estate empires. So
12:08 one person who we added to our list again this year George Economo he has an estimated one hundred fifty million dollar real
12:16 estate collection homes in London New York St. Barts South of France. And of course where would we be without yachts. Right.
12:25 You know these are ship owners classic billionaire purchase yachts. So George Procopio for example owns a yacht called
12:32 Dream which has two outdoor swimming pools a helipad. So if you're looking across it across the board they really invested in
12:42 in all these different kinds of areas. A lot of industry industries spanning from sports to media everything in between. I know
12:49 we talked about sanctions earlier and how other companies not these Greek billionaires were kind of flouting those sanctions.
12:56 Have they shipped these Greek billionaires shipped oil to any other countries that were under sanctions. So it kind of depends
13:04 when you sort of what time period you're looking at. There was one example in 2020 when the U.S. had sanctions on Venezuela
13:11 and Venezuelan oil. The U.S. Treasury Department blocked two ships that were owned by two Greek ship owners who who are now
13:22 on our billionaires list. And then what happened was they came out and said they would no longer ship Venezuelan oil. And a few
13:29 weeks later the Treasury Department removed the sanctions on those ships. Historically speaking if you go further back there
13:37 was a famous example in the 1960s when Rhodesia which is now Zimbabwe when it was ruled by white minority regime was under
13:46 U.N. sanctions and a U.N. embargo. One Greek ship owning family had attempted to ship oil to Mozambique which was then ruled by
13:57 Portugal and it was going to be supposedly shipped by pipeline to Rhodesia. They were stopped from doing so. They didn't. So
14:04 it you know one good quote I think that's in our story is about how you know they will not violate sanctions. They will not.
14:12 They will not sort of break the law and take that kind of risk but sort of within the parameters of what can be done. They will
14:21 always try to find opportunities to make money. So they will definitely toe that line without crossing it. So have they faced
14:28 any consequences for towing that line. Well the example I mentioned Venezuela sort of one where the ships were briefly
14:35 sanctioned or blocked and then that was removed. So far not really. I mean if we're looking at Russia for example
14:45 the companies that are shipping Russian oil would say we are not breaking the law. We have not been subject to any enforcement by
14:55 Western countries and we're complying with the price cap. And that appears to be the case. Right. There's no indication that
15:01 they have broken any sanctions. So they are benefiting from the impact that the war has had on sort of the tanker market as
15:11 anyone else has whether or not they're trading Russian oil. But there's no indication that they've broken any sanctions or
15:18 broken any laws. So I want to go back to the quote you pointed out earlier where it essentially was the Russia
15:25 Ukraine war is obviously bad for humanity but good for business. We saw the two year mark of the war come and go. Do you
15:32 think we're going to continue to see this boom when it comes to Greek shipping. Yeah I think it's hard to say now. I mean
15:40 like taking a step back from the Greek ship owners. There's a lot of reports out now that say that you know for this year and
15:49 probably next year the values and sort of prices of new tankers is going to keep rising on the resale market. You know for the
15:57 older tankers it's sort of decreased a little bit recently. But the you know the impact is still there. Right. So these longer
16:08 journeys are still happening. What we may see more of going forward is Russia using the so-called shadow fleet. So older ships
16:17 owned by obscure companies that do not follow Western sanctions. And the U.S. has sanctioned these these companies like the
16:27 ones in Basin Dubai that I mentioned before. They're tied to the Russian government. So the more they do that and the Russian
16:36 oil is traded more by those firms obviously the less it's going to be traded by companies in Greece or anywhere else that do
16:44 follow the Western that do follow through the Western regulations. And but you know I don't think anyone knows how long this
16:54 war is going to keep going. And the impact has really changed a lot over time. So I think it's still too early to say.
17:00 Giacomo thanks for your reporting. I appreciate the conversation. Thanks for having me.
17:04 Thank you.
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