Galery

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2010 will go down in Greek history as the year in which the IMF has come to save the country from bankruptcy. At the same time, Greece remains famous for its millionaires around the world. Sunday Times published this year a list of the thousand richest men in the UK and Greek millionaires and billionaires have pride of place in it.

Alki David is the first among the ten Greek wealthy in Britain. He is 42 years old of Greek-Cypriot origin, member of the Levendis family. Alki David’s fortune is estimated at around 1.2 billion pounds and he ranks 45^th in the list of the richest men in Britain. His fortune is the result of shipping business he sold later and started investing in media. His family owns 28 bottling plants of Coca-Cola in the world.

Alki David is interested in the film industry – acting, directing and producing are supplementary to his making money. One of the last major projects of the eccentric billionaire is called FilmOn.com, which is a web platform for transmitting 30 high definition TV programs to mobile phones, computers and other Internet receivers. Currently CBS and several TV companies have legal proceedings against David for copyright infringement by using FilmOn.com. The billionaire’s response was not late and he accused CBS in piracy and said the battle will be won. On February 2009 FilmOn was registered on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange with a market value of about 577 million pounds.

Filippos Niarchos is 57 years old and ranks second in the ranking of the richest Greeks in the United Kingdom with 750 million pounds. He and his younger brother Spiros are descendants of the shipping empire of their father – the legendary Stavros Niarchos. Filippos is known for his fondness to modern art and has a huge collection of priceless paintings by great artists. Among the masterpieces owned by the Greek millionaire are paintings by Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Andy Warhol and others. He not only manages the millions of the shipping giant but is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and co-chair of the Foundation Stavros Niarchos.

Stelios Haji-Ioannou is another millionaire who enjoys 820 million pounds, according to Greek Rich List. In 2010 the founder of the low budget EasyJet sold the ferry company EasyCruise managed by him to the Greek company Hellenic Seaways for 6.5 million pounds. At the same time, he bought 5% of the share of Sea Star Capital. It is registered on the Cyprus Stock Exchange and manages two Greek ferry companies – ANEK and Hellenic Seaways. According to brecorder.com, EasyJet profits are expected to increase in 2011 and in the next two years due to the upsurge in business travels in Europe.

Michael Lemos is 55 years old and takes the 101^st place in the Sunday Times Rich List. He is the heir to a shipping company. He has increased the family fortune from 550 million pounds to 605 million pounds in a year. Lemos runs up a company in London his father established and his two sisters live in Greece.

Another offspring of the Greek island of Cyprus makes the Greeks proud - Chris Lazari is 64 years old and is known for his success in the real estate market in and around London. He says for The Cyprus Weekly that his motto is "Work is the means for success" and he firmly believes that it doesn’t matter how rich you are and if you don’t run your business alone others will quickly take your place. He holds the 125^th place in the 2010 rich list of the Sunday Times and the 5^th in the list of wealthiest Greeks in the UK. His fortune is estimated at around 522 million pounds and unlike the Greek economy registered significant increase compared to 2009, when it was estimated at ‘only’ 425 million pounds. Nevertheless, Chris Lazari says that the best deal he has entered into is the marriage with his wife as they are happily married for over 40 years.

The Candy brothers – Nicholas at the age of 36 and Christian at the age of 35 – are the next in the list with estimated wealth of 300 million pounds. They are active on the luxury real estate market and made their first investment in 1995 in an apartment on the Radcliff square in the Earls Court neighbourhood in London. They bought the apartment for 122,000 pounds and had to borrow six thousand pounds from their grandmother (Wikipedia) to carry out repairs. The brothers managed to sell the property for 172,000 pounds after a year and a half and the improvements made. The two brothers continued to buy property and build their name on the real estate market in the period.1995-1999. After the establishment of Candy & Candy Ltd. on the market their company is valued at 300 million euros today.