Yiannis Latsis

Ioannis "Yiannis" Latsis (Template:Langx; 14 September 1910 – 17 April 2003), also known as John Spyridon Latsis, was a Greek shipping multi-billionaire business magnate notable for his great wealth, influential friends, and charitable activities.

The year of his death (2003), Forbes magazine ranked Yiannis Latsis number 101 on its list of the world's richest people, with a fortune estimated at $6.4 billion.<ref name=NYT/>

Biography

Latsis was born in Katakolo, a fishing village in the Elis. His family was from the Greek community in Albania. He was the sixth of nine children, the son of Spiro Latsis and Aphrodite Efthimiou.<ref name=Independent>Template:Cite news</ref> He was educated at the Pyrgos School of Commerce and the Template:Ill.<ref name=Embassy>Template:Cite web</ref>

He started as a deckhand, eventually working his way up to ship's captain in the merchant marine.<ref name=Embassy/> After the Second World War, Latsis expanded his activities into coastal shipping with the purchase of used passenger vessels. The most renowned of these vessels was the Neraida (ex-Laurana), an Italian-built passenger ship that was routed in the coastal line of the Argo-Saronic Gulf from 1950 to 1974. Today, she is a floating museum dedicated to her owner's business history.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

He bought his first cargo vessel in 1938 and by the 1960s, owned a fleet of ships.<ref name="NYT">Template:Cite news</ref> In 1955, Latsis purchased a cargo vessel, the Marianna. Three years later, he purchased his first oil tanker, the Spyros, which was used for the transportation of liquid molasses from Egypt to Greece and the UK. In the following years, his fleet expanded significantly, with the acquisition of passenger vessels, cargo ships and oil tankers. In the 1990s, Latsis’ fleet was one of the largest under Greek ownership.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In the late 1960s, he diversified his business to include oil – establishing Petrola in 1975<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> — and construction, building (among other things) oil refineries in Greece and Saudi Arabia,<ref name="Independent" /><ref name="NYT" /> before gradually expanding into banking and financial services.<ref name="NYT" />

Latsis also invested in yacht management and established a private airline, LatsisAir (later renamed PetrolAir). In the early 1980s, he made his first investment in the banking sector, with the acquisition of the Banque de Dépôt, a small bank based in Geneva.  Banque de Dépôt eventually evolved into EFG International Bank, one of the largest Swiss private banks listed on the Zurich stock exchange.Template:Citation needed

His European Financial Group owns banks in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Monaco, the Channel Islands and Greece.Template:Citation needed

In 1990, he hosted the G7 Economic Conference at Bridgewater House, Westminster, London.<ref name=Independent/> He was a close friend of Charles, Prince of Wales, twice loaning him the use of his yacht Alexandros, firstly in 1991 for a second honeymoon with the Princess of Wales, and secondly in 2002 for a cruise with Camilla Parker-Bowles.<ref name=NYT/> Others to whom he lent the ship included former US President George H. W. Bush, Colin Powell and Marlon Brando.<ref name=NYT/> He also maintained close ties with the Saudi royal family.<ref name=NYT/>

Latsis donated £5 million to the British Conservative Party during his business career.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Business empire

The Latsis commercial empire has been closely involved with German firm Hochtief in both constructing and managing Spata airport. Through Hellenic Petroleum, one of Greece's largest oil companies – in which another partner is the Russian oil giant LUKoil – it holds the contract for all fuel supplies to the airport, through an EU-funded pipeline built by a Latsis engineering company. Hellenic Petroleum, according to its own accounts, in 2000, paid $912 million to acquire a 34 percent interest in the Athens Airport Fuel Pipeline Company.Template:Citation needed

A Latsis company also has a 50 percent stake in the huge contract for running most of the airport's "ground-handling" services – almost everything except control of the aircraft themselves.Template:Citation needed

Latsis's development arm, Lamda, is a partner with Hochtief in a series of vast, part-EU funded motorway projects across Greece, as part of the "Trans European Network". And between 1999 and 2004, during the time when Spata airport was completed, the commission last week revealedTemplate:Citation needed that the giant EFG Eurobank Ergasias banking group, controlled by Latsis family interests, held an exclusive contract to handle all EU structural funds coming to Greece, totalling €28 billion.Template:Citation needed

Philanthropy

His charitable works began with the establishment of the Latsis Scholarships Institute in 1970<ref name=Embassy/> and also included the provision of aid to earthquake victims<ref name=NYT/> and the creation of the Latsis Foundation. Two years after his passing in 2003, his immediate family founded the John S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation in his memory, that undertook the activity of the aforementioned scholarship fund and all the philanthropic work of the family.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Awards

He was awarded the Golden Cross from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Grand Cross of the Order of the Phoenix by Greece.<ref name=Independent/><ref name=Embassy/>

Personal life

Latsis married Erietta Tsoukala. They had three children: Spiros, Marianna and Margarita.<ref name=Embassy/> Spiros is a trustee of the Friends of Europe, an EU-wide lobbying organisation for greater political integration. His grandson Paris Latsis (son of Marianna) was the former fiancé of Paris Hilton.

External links

• John S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation
• Neraida Floating Museum