Greece-based shipowner and entrepreneur Evangelos (Vangelis) Marinakis is again prominently featured in Lloyd’s List 2021 edition of the 100 most influential personalities in global shipping, marking the 12th consecutive year that he’s been listed.

Moreover, the trail-blazing Greek shipping owner and executive moved up 12 spots from 2020’s listing, landing in 47th place, after a series of eyebrow-raising deals, acquisitions and an emphasis on ocean-going shipping’s “green transition” during the past year.

Lloyd’s List emphasizes that “…besides a cascade of big deals across several shipping sectors, the Capital boss has ensured his group is in the forefront of exploring greener technologies.”

According to Lloyd’s List “Evangelos Marinakis is one of the most active big deal-makers in shipping, as well as being a public figure in Greece ― primarily as owner of Olympiacos football club, a serial title-winner.

He was firing on all cylinders in 2021.

Added to a substantial fleet of tankers and containerships, his Capital Group has made a dynamic entry to liquefied natural gas shipping and this was expanded during the year.
Mr Marinakis recently secured three more scarce shipbuilding berths for 2024 to bring his LNG carrier newbuilding programme to 12 vessels, all from Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries.

Of these, the first six were delivered between November 2020 and September 2021. Backed with long-term charters to energy and gas majors BP, Cheniere and Engie, the six delivered units have been acquired by Nasdaq-listed affiliate Capital Product Partners.

Acquisition of some of the LNG carriers has been partly financed by a $175m bond issue, only the second-ever issue by a mainstream shipping company on the Athens Exchange ― and the largest unsecured issue so far to take place in the Greek market.

Diversifying the containership-owning partnership into the LNG sector looks like a bold move, but the addition of the LNG carriers has tripled Capital Product’s revenue backlog to almost $2bn and extended the average charter duration of the fleet to more than eight years.

The scale of the public company has been built back faster than most will have imagined after it spun off its tanker fleet in a merger with Diamond S Shipping in 2019.

The shipowner has not been neglecting the boxship and tanker sectors either.

Well-timed orders of container vessels towards the end of 2020 have provided a pipeline of several new boxships, while allowing the owner to reap immediate profits by flipping some of the units at sky-high prices. Shrewd deals also including picking up a number of panamaxes and baby panamaxes secondhand.

During 2021, a series of six 1,800 teu feeder vessels was contracted with Hyundai Mipo Dockyard and are set to be among the very few Tier III-compliant feederships in the market when delivered.
On the tanker side, the group has inked two novation contracts with Hyundai Samho for two LNG- and ammonia-ready very large crude carriers.

It has also ordered six ‘future-proof’ medium range tankers that are ready for AMP, rotor sails, methanol, LNG and ammonia. They are the first vessels that have been awarded new ABS notations, recognising investments in decarbonisation technologies.

Mr Marinakis is a hard driver, not only when it comes to commercial negotiations, but also when it comes to standards of safety, sustainability and all-round excellence in his group’s operations.

One sign of this is that ― unusually early for an LNG shipping debutante ― his in-house LNG management company has already been entrusted by a major charterer to undertake the role of technical manager.

His determination to be at the forefront of shipping’s green transition is reflected in the wide range of projects and research programmes in which the group is participating.

These have included various projects focusing on ammonia, fuel cells powered by green ammonia and green methanol, smart bearings, biofuels, full fleet digitalisation, and electric power.

At the same time, Mr Marinakis has been a leader in linking shipping with social contribution.
Through Olympiacos, he responded immediately to Greece’s outbreak of wildfires over the summer, sending emergency supplies to the front line of ravaged villages.

He has also been a major giver to the Union of Greek Shipowners’ support for the national health system in its battle against the coronavirus pandemic and regularly supports numerous other causes, including education and cultural heritage.

Mr Marinakis also appeared in the Top 100 in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.”

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