Yiannis Latsis

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Yiannis Latsis (September 14, 1910–April 17, 2003) also known as John S. Latsis, was a Greek shipping tycoon notable for his great wealth, influential friends, and charitable activities.

Latsis was born in Katakolo — a fishing village in the Prefecture of Ilia — (although his origins are from Epirus) and was educated at the Pyrgos School of Commerce and the School for Merchant Navy Captains. He began working as a deckhand, eventually holding posts as a ship's captain. He bought his first cargo vessel in 1938 and by the 1960s owned a fleet of ships. In the late 1960s he diversified his business to include oil — establishing Petrola — and construction before gradually expanding into banking and financial services.

His European Financial Group owns banks in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Monaco, the Channel Islands and Greece. Forbes magazine recently estimated the Latsis family fortune at US $7.5 billion -- placing them at No. 54 on the magazine's list of the world's richest people.

His charitable works began with the establishment of the Latsis Scholarships Institute in 1970 and also included the provision of aid to earthquake victims and the creation of the Latsis Foundation.

Latsis lent his private yacht, Alexander to notable figures such as The Prince and Princess of Wales, Camilla Parker Bowles, George H. W. Bush, Colin Powell, and Marlon Brando.

His son Spiros Latsis is a trustee of the Friends of Europe, an EU-wide lobbying organisation for greater political integration.

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 $612 million to acquire a 34 percent interest in the Athens Airport Fuel Pipeline Company.

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.

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 revealed 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.