By L. Karageorgos
[email protected]
The funeral and interment of well-known Greek shipping magnate John Angelicoussis will be held with only close family members present, given the Covid-19 restrictions in place in Greece, according to an announcement over the weekend.
Angelicoussis,72, passed way in Athens on Saturday morning after being hospitalized since March 20 after suffering a heart attack.
The head of the Angelicoussis Shipping Group was born in 1948 in Piraeus, the ancient port of greater Athens and the country's shipping hub. His family, active in the shipping sector, hailed from the eastern Aegean island of Hios (Chios). He began working in the family business in 1973 and by 2001 had acquired a majority stake.
The Angelicoussis Shipping Group's first vessel was acquired in 1948, with the first new ship order, for a bulker, given in 1965 and received in 1968. Between 1985 and today the group has received 28 new bulk carriers built by Japan's Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries.
An order for five cape-size bulk carriers at Hyundai Heavy Industries Co was made in 1993. Three years later, the group entered the tanker sector, purchasing its first VLCC in 2000. Yet three years later, in 2003, the group enters the even more sophisticated and demanding LNG sector.
According to the group's website, its companies control a fleet of 139 bulk carriers, tankers and LNG carriers, with another 15 under construction. The Angelicoussis group employs nearly 7,500 people, with more than nine out of 10 serving aboard vessels.
John Angelicoussis established the Antonios & Ioannis Angelicoussis Foundation in 2013, which has recorded significant charitable work since then.
The late shipping magnate served for many years as a board member of the Union of Greek Shipowners (UGS) and the London-based Greek Shipping Corporation Committee, or simply "Committee".
Condolences poured in from the Greek shipping community and on behalf of the government, with UGS Theodore Veniamis stressing, in a message, that "today we lost one of our own, a beloved friend and a gentleman."
