Stavros Niarchos
Stavros Spyros Niarchos was a prominent Greek shipping magnate born in Athens, Greece, who became known for his significant contributions to the maritime industry. His early life was marked by hardship, as his family faced bankruptcy when he was just fourteen. Despite this setback, Niarchos pursued a career in shipping, starting with a flour-milling business before venturing out on his own by acquiring ships during the Great Depression. He served in the Royal Hellenic Navy during World War II and capitalized on wartime opportunities by leasing his fleet to governments and later commissioning large oil tankers.
Throughout his career, Niarchos built one of the largest shipping fleets in the world, marked by his competitive rivalry with fellow magnate Aristotle Onassis. His business acumen allowed him to navigate challenges such as the Suez Crisis, during which he reportedly made substantial profits. Niarchos's personal life was also tumultuous, as he experienced the tragic deaths of two wives. In his later years, he shifted focus to art collection and philanthropy, establishing the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, which continues to support charitable causes today. Niarchos's legacy endures not only through his business achievements but also through his contributions to society and the arts.
Subject Terms
Stavros Niarchos
Greek shipping magnate and socialite
- Born: July 3, 1909
- Birthplace: Athens, Greece
- Died: April 16, 1996
- Place of death: Zurich, Switzerland
Niarchos led the way in modernizing Greece’s shipping industry after World War II and assembled a larger merchant fleet than any of his competitors. One of the world’s richest individuals, he pursued a lavish lifestyle, but he provided for the establishment of an international philanthropic foundation after his death.
Source of wealth: Shipping
Bequeathal of wealth: Children; charity
Early Life
Stavros Spyros Niarchos (STAHV-rohs SPEE-rohs nee-AHR-kohs) was born in Athens, Greece, after his naturalized American parents, Spyros and Eugenia (née Coumandaros) Niarchos, had returned to the land of their birth. He grew up in the nearby port of Piraeus and learned to sail at the age of nine. Niarchos was fourteen when his family went bankrupt, and although he studied law at the University of Athens, he eventually went to work at the flour-milling business owned by his maternal uncles.
First Ventures
An astute young man, Niarchos suggested that the Coumandaros brothers buy their own large freighters in order to cut the expense of shipping grain from Argentina. The Great Depression had made older ships available at bargain prices, and the move reduced the costs of importing grain by one-third. However, the brothers were reluctant to expand their fleet, and Niarchos left the firm in 1939, buying one of his uncles’ ships through a London agent and creating his own company. He leased his small fleet to the British and American governments at the beginning of World War II and served in the Royal Hellenic Navy, although his growing wealth allowed him to spend most of his time in New York, London, and Egypt.
Mature Wealth
Several of Niarchos’s ships were sunk during the war, but the insurance he collected for the losses allowed him to purchase American-made Liberty and Victory ships that had been mass-produced during the war. He set up a company involving his American-born sister in order to skirt laws regarding corporate ownership, and he registered the company in Panama to avoid American taxes, but he was nevertheless forced to pay $12 million in fines in 1953.
Niarchos also began commissioning oil tankers that were so large they would be dubbed “supertankers.” During the Suez Crisis of 1956, which forced ships to travel around Africa rather than through the Suez Canal, he reportedly made additional profits of $1 million per day.
Niarchos had long been in competition with fellow shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, and in the late 1940’s the two had married the daughters of another important shipping figure, Stavros G. Livanos. Niarchos eventually triumphed over his competitor, and by the mid-1960’s he owned some eighty vessels. After his wife Eugenia died of an apparent overdose of sleeping pills in 1970, Niarchos married her sister Athina, who had earlier divorced Onassis. In 1974, Athina also died of an overdose of sleeping pills.
World shipping fell into a slump in 1972, but Niarchos, who had begun to diversify into such activities as oil refining and aluminum production, had already sold most of his fleet. He spent his remaining years collecting art, skiing in Switzerland, raising racehorses, and sailing on his 377-foot yacht, Atlantis II. He suffered a stroke in 1996 and died on April 16 of that year.
Legacy
Niarchos, whose name means “master of ships” in Greek, owed his success to his competitive spirit, as well as his keen business sense. After studying the practices of Norwegian shipping companies, he realized the possibilities of investing in fleets of large merchant ships, and he went on to pioneer the construction of supertankers. By the mid-1960’s his fleet had become the largest in the world, and at the time of his death his family’s wealth was said to be between $4 and $10 billion.
Niarchos had donated $5 million to the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center in 1979 to cover the costs of operating on Greek children, and he left the majority of his enormous estate to establish the charitable Stavros Niarchos Foundation, the administrators of which included his two eldest sons. His heirs began to dispose of the few remaining vessels of the Niarchos fleet in 2003, citing the increased risks involved in shipping.
Bibliography
Colquhoun, Keith, and Ann Wroe. The Economist Book of Obituaries. New York: Bloomberg Press, 2008.
Lilly, Doris. Those Fabulous Greeks: Onassis, Niarchos, and Livanos. New York: Cowles, 1970.
Smith, Sally Bedell. “The Secrets of Midas.” Vanity Fair 55, no. 8 (August, 1992): 128-137, 181-288.