Stavros Spyros Niarchos, a Greek billionaire shipping tycoon who spent much of his life battling his rival Aristotle Onassis for supremacy on the high seas, was born in Athens on July 3, 1909.
Stavros was born in Greece's capital city to a wealthy family. He was the son of Spyros Niarchos and his wife, Eugenie Koumantaros, a rich heiress. Stavros' great-great-grandfather, Philippos Niarchos, was a Greek shipping agent in Valetta. He had married a daughter from a noble family in Malta, and their younger offspring had moved to Greece to establish a merchant business in Malta.
Niarchos was a naval officer in WWII, during which time part of the trade fleet he had developed with his uncle was destroyed. He used about two million dollars in insurance settlement to build a new fleet. His most famous asset was the yacht Atlantis, currently known as 'Issham Al Baher' after he gifted it to King Fahd of Saudi Arabia.
He then founded Niarchos Ltd, an international shipping company that once operated more than 80 tankers worldwide. He and Aristotle Onassis were great shipping rivals. In 1952, high-capacity oil supertankers were built for the competing Niarchos and Onassis fleets, which were both claiming to own the largest tanker in the world at the time.
So, although he was known as a mystery man, there was little mystery in the way Stavros S. Niarchos built a personal fortune.
Niarchos, meaning "master of ships," was exceptionally skilled at seizing opportunities, particularly in the shipping industry. When the Suez Canal Crisis occurred in 1956, there was a surge in demand for the large tonnage ships owned by Niarchos, leading to significant business growth and ultimately making him a billionaire.
The secret of his shipping success was very simple: buy cheap and buy big.
Niarchos was married five times and had two daughters and three sons. He died in 1996 in Zurich at the age of 87.
At the time of his death, his fortune was estimated to be worth in excess of $22 billion. When Niarchos died, he left half his fortune to a charitable trust to be established in his name and the other half to his three sons and daughter Maria by his marriage to Greek shipping heiress Eugenia Livanos, a nephew and a great-nephew.
Money from his trust has been given to many charities around Greece, including millions of dollars that went towards The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre. This amazing complex in the bay of Faliro in Athens features new facilities for the National Library of Greece and the Greek National Opera, as well as the 210,000 m² Stavros Niarchos Park.
Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center celebrates its fifth anniversary with a beautiful video
