Stavros Niarchos; Billionaire Shipping Tycoon

Greek shipping tycoon Stavros Niarchos, one of the world’s richest men and renowned for his rivalry with the late Aristotle Onassis, has died in Switzerland. He was 86.

Reuters and the Associated Press on Tuesday quoted Athens radio and television stations as reporting that Niarchos died Monday at the Zurich Cantonal Hospital and was to be buried in St Moritz today. No cause of death was given.

The shipping magnate had been in and out of hospitals in recent years, including a stay for an undisclosed problem in Houston’s Methodist Hospital in 1990.

Niarchos, a man of great energy and huge luck in business, had a turbulent personal life. His fourth wife was American automobile heiress Charlotte Ford and his fifth and last was a former wife of Onassis’ and offspring of another Greek shipping family, Tina Livanos.

Eugenia, Niarchos’ third wife and a sister of Tina, died in 1970 at age 44 of a barbiturate overdose on Niarchos’ private Aegean island of Spectsopoula. Niarchos was accused of manslaughter after bruises were found on her body, but he was absolved by a judicial council. Critics claimed that the charges were dismissed because the military dictatorship at the time needed Niarchos’ economic help.

A resident of Switzerland for years, Niarchos earned hundreds of millions of dollars shipping crude oil around the world. He attributed his success 60% to energy and 40% to luck.

At the outset of World War II, he owned seven tramp steamers that he chartered to the Allies. After six were sunk, Niarchos pocketed $2 million in insurance, which he used to buy surplus U.S. “liberty ships” at war’s end. He went on to build one of the world’s largest private tanker fleets and weathered the slump that hit the world merchant fleet in the mid- 1980s. Financial analysts estimated that Niarchos’ holdings in the mid-1980s were worth $2.4 billion.

His jet-set lifestyle made his name synonymous with wealth. He entertained world leaders and socialites on his luxury yachts and private island and collected racehorses and rare paintings.

Niarchos’ competition with Onassis, former husband of the late Jacqueline Kennedy, extended to yachts as well as women. After Onassis became famous for his 325-foot Christina, Niarchos built his 385-foot Atlantis-in 1973 the world’s largest private yacht. The Atlantis, with a crew of 50 to serve 22 overnight guests, included marbled bathrooms, a mosaic dance floor over a swimming pool, a library and movie theater, and a salon lined with paintings by Van Gogh, Gauguin and Andy Warhol.

Born in the Greek port city of Piraeus near Athens on July 3, 1909, Niarchos earned a law degree at the University of Athens and then entered a flour-mill business owned by his mother’s family.

He set the course for his later fortune by convincing his relatives that it would be more profitable to operate their own shipping fleet and to buy ships of the largest possible tonnage.

Niarchos had three sons and a daughter from his marriage to Eugenia and a daughter from his two-year marriage to Ford.