Aristotle Onassis

Aristotle Onassis

Shipping tycoon

businessman

Aristotle Socrates Onassis 

•  (20 January 1906 – 15 March 1975),[was a Greek[ shipping magnate who amassed the world's largest privately-owned shipping fleet and was one of the world's richest and most famous men.[5] He was married to Athina Mary Livanos (daughter of shipping tycoon Stavros G. Livanos), had a long-standing affair with opera singer Maria Callas and was married to Jacqueline Kennedy, the widow of US President John F. Kennedy.[6]
• Onassis was born in Smyrna (modern-day İzmir in Turkey) and fled the city with his family to Greece in 1922 in the wake of the catastrophe of Smyrna. He moved to Argentina in 1923 and established himself as a tobacco trader and later a shipping owner during the Second World War. Moving to Monaco, Onassis fought Prince Rainier III for economic control of the country through his ownership of SBM and its Monte Carlo Casino. In the mid-1950s, he sought to secure an oil shipping arrangement with Saudi Arabia and engaged in whaling expeditions. In the 1960s, Onassis attempted to establish a large investment contract—Project Omega—with the Greek military junta, and he sold Olympic Airways, which he had founded in 1957. Onassis was greatly affected by the death of his 24-year-old son, Alexander, in a plane crash in 1973, and he died two years later.

Business Shipping

Onassis built up a fleet of freighters and tankers that eventually exceeded seventy vessels. Most of the fleet operated under flags of convenience where laws and regulations are more lax than those of the owners’ country. More austere regulations in countries such as the United States, which afforded higher wages and safety standards, allowed access to domestic routes with higher freight rates but at far greater running expense. As was then common practice in international shipping, Onassis's fleet had mostly Panamanian and Liberian flags and sailed tax-free while operating at low cost. This and his astute business sense helped Onassis earn handsome profits in the highly competitive shipping market. Onassis made large profits when the Big Oil companies like Mobil, Socony, and Texaco signed long-term contracts known as time charters at fixed prices before the spot market fell.