Photo: Stavros Petropoulos

Business Foundation

From shipping to public benefit

40% of the annual profit of the Business Foundation are offered to public benefit.

A unique finance model

What starts as a struggle across the seas of the world comes back to Greece as social investment. This was the vision of Aristotle Onassis, this was the wish in his will where it was noted that the Foundation is divided in two sectors: the Business and the Public Benefit, with a clear instruction that the business activities of the one will not interfere with the work of the other. The Business Foundation focuses mainly on shipping in the center there's also the gene of the Onassis ecosystem – but also on other businesses and investments with sole beneficiary the Public Benefit Foundation. As the will of its founder provided, the Public Benefit Foundation spends almost 40% of the net annual profits of the Business, while the rest are invested over again.

Photo: SERAPIS

The heritage that the Business Foundation manages has multiplied by 5 compared to the heritage of 1975

The Olympic Shipping and Management S.A. is the continuation of Olympic Maritime, which Aristotle Onassis founded in Paris in 1952 and which was based in Monaco up until early 1990s. Since then, the company has been transferred to Athens, in Palaio Faliro. The company's fleet comprises 19 tankers with a combined total DWT of 5 million tons. Out of these, 8 are under Greek flag and 11 under Marshall Islands flag. The Olympic Shipping and Management S.A. provides services for the commercial occupancy of the ships (charters) as well as the accounting monitoring.

Springfield Shipping Co Panama S.A. has taken up the technical management of the ship focusing on the constant improvement of the services provided on matters of crew and ship safety as well as environmental protection. There are about 1000 navy men working on the managed ships, of which 400 are Greek, 20 Russian and 70 Filipino officers and the rest 510 foreign sailors.

At the same time, the Business Foundation deals with portfolio investments and is active in real estate, with estates in the Bucharest and Greece. The Foundation manages the estates itself through its services. The building or renovation of the estates by the Foundation was done under the supervision of the appropriate departments or under complete control of the Foundation.

This model is complex but efficient. Difficult but necessary. Intricate but simple: the effort, the work, the thought, the knowledge, the action of the Business Foundation is unified, capitalized and ultimately spread across society in the form of service and life.

Photo: SERAPIS