Shipping and property tycoon George Procopiou has increased his investment in Ellinikon — one of Europe’s biggest real estate projects that has slowly begun taking shape on the Athens Riviera.
Procopiou, who is investing more than $6bn in about 80 tanker and bulker newbuildings, announced on Tuesday that he will spend €120m ($134m) to buy plots inside the former Athens airport from Lamda Development — the real estate company in charge of the overall project.
The Procopiou clan, which has a long history in real estate, plans to develop residential homes, office buildings and an educational facility on the formerly state-owned plots opposite the Glyfada Golf Club, near the sea.
The family’s total investment will reach €500m, Lamda said in a stock exchange filing.
In the announcement, Procopiou pledged to help develop Ellinikon as a “new, smart, modern green city”.
This is the second cooperation between Procopiou and Lamda since June, when the founder of the Dynacom, Dynagas and Sea Traders agreed to buy a 2% stake worth €25.1m in Lamda — an Athens-listed firm controlled by a branch of the Latsis family.
Touted as Greece’s biggest privatisation in the years of the country’s debt crisis, Ellinikon began gathering pace recently, overcoming years of bureaucratic delays.
Now it is slowly taking off, the project has begun attracting other Greek shipowners.
Over the summer, Sea Globe and Sea World Management principal Vassilis Laliotis agreed to buy a Greek private school that had recently lined up a 30-year lease agreement with Lamda to set up a campus in the area.
It is not immediately clear if the educational facility that Procopiou said he would develop at Ellinikon is the same as the one the Laliotis-owned school is planning.
Rising fortunes
Rising shipping fortunes over the past couple of years have encouraged more unconventional investments by Greek shipping players.
TradeWinds reported in July how shipping partners Dimitris Bakos and George Kaimenakis wrested control of troubled Greek lender Attica Bank.
In June, ferry and tanker owner Marios Iliopoulos agreed to acquire AEK Athens football club.
In the same month, Evangelos Marinakis and his son, Miltiadis, finalised a deal to acquire a controlling stake in Portuguese club Rio Ave, which became the family’s third football team after Olympiacos Piraeus and Nottingham Forest.
