Stepping into the shoes of an iconic shipping magnate who was able to read markets early and make the right call would be a heavy burden for anyone, but Maria Angelicoussis’ task is made harder by the fact that the industry is at a crossroads.
Even smaller companies will find it hard enough to take the fundamental, high-stakes decisions necessary to manage the transition to a low-carbon future — let alone the behemoth that John Angelicoussis, who died on Saturday, bequeathed.
And as her first big call, the decisions Maria makes over future fuelling could define the group’s future fortunes.
Unlike in many other shipping dynasties, it was not a foregone conclusion that Maria would follow in the footsteps of her father, John. She gave up a medical career in the UK when she joined the Angelicoussis Shipping Group (ASG) in 2008, at the height of the financial crisis.
Sustaining the powerhouse
The fact that she embarked on a shipping career relatively late in life has left some people in Piraeus shipping circles doubtful as to whether she will be able to sustain the powerhouse her father created — a fleet of about 150 vessels and newbuildings, from bulkers to tankers to gas carriers to floating storage and regasification units.
The departure last July of John Platsidakis and Stavros Hatzigrigoris, two leading ASG executives, and their replacement by younger insiders such as new Maran Gas general manager Despina Moustaka may have set the company on a path towards fuel transition. On the other hand, it may cost it in terms of experience.
UK-raised Maria Angelicoussis speaks English like an Englishwoman and Greek like a Greek.
She attended St Paul’s Girls’ School, London, before going on to study medicine at the University of Cambridge, where she obtained a first-class degree with honours and was awarded the Whitby scholarship.
Maria is married to Croatian sports agent Lawrence Frankopan. They have three children — Sophia and twins Isabella and Yiannis.
“That fleet is simply unmanageable,” one major shipowner and competitor told TradeWinds, adding that it was difficult enough for a uniquely committed and gifted man like John Angelicoussis to hold it together.
“She doesn’t have her father’s experience — everybody knows that,” said another owner. “Unfortunately, she’s a single child and that means that the entire weight falls on her shoulders. To do her job efficiently, she might have to do some downsizing.”
But several insiders believe that the 39-year-old is up to the task.
“The company is very strong and there isn’t any reason to believe that it shouldn’t continue to be so in the future,” said Panos Laskaridis, another Greek heavyweight.
It would take “big failures” and “senseless initiatives” to damage the robust company that John Angelicoussis created, Laskaridis added. “I don’t think that Maria is a person who would make such errors.”
Colm Nolan, who worked as John Angelicoussis’ right-hand man for 20 years as Agelef chartering manager, has no doubt she is up to the task.
“Her biggest challenge is having the right people around her,” Nolan said. “If you have the right people around you — whose judgement and skill you can trust — then you can take the right decisions. That’s what John did. And I’m sure she can too, since she is clever and has a strong new team.”
People who have known the family and how John Angelicoussis groomed her to succeed him, agreed with that view.
“John’s daughter is charismatic,” said Anastasios Papagiannopoulos, one of the few friends of John Angelicoussis since the 1970s. “She has great capabilities and good co-workers — they’re very well set up. I don’t think she’ll have any difficulty.”
Past statements suggest that Maria agrees with her father that the company has no need for public markets. At the same time, talks to order dual-fuel VLCCs at Samsung Heavy Industries show she is already taking the company in new directions.
ASG outfit Maran Tankers was previously engaged in a huge scrubber-fitting programme.
