Greek ship owners ready to decamp from UK

[Neptune]

Greece has moved swiftly to ensure the return of about 100 expatriate ship owners threatened by the UK government’s imminent crackdown on wealthy non-domiciled foreigners.

“London’s loss will be ­Athens’ gain,” said George Voulgarakis, merchant marine minister in Greece’s conservative government.

At a meeting in London with UK-based owners, Mr Voulgarakis pledged to maintain a favourable tax regime for the Greek shipping community, which controls about 15 per cent of the global commercial fleet in tonnage terms.

Athens-based operators of ocean-going ships are not liable for tax on foreign earnings, property purchases or income from funds held in US dollars.

“We’re examining additional measures that would benefit owners who transfer their headquarters to Greece,” Mr Voulgarakis said, without giving details.

About 30 companies have arrived in Athens in the past six years, according to Nikos Tsakos, a board member of the UK-based Greek Shipping Co-operation Council who divides his time between London and Athens.

The trickle of new arrivals is about to become a flood.

“There will be an exodus over the next two or three years,” said one London-based owner.

Athens is already a base for most Greek owners. About 900 operators of ocean-going ships have seen earnings grow at unprecedented rates over the past five years, thanks to the boom in global trade with China and India.

The boom has created more than 30 new Greek shipping billionaires, according to local bankers.

“Dozens of smaller operators have also been riding this wave. People worth $30-$40m five years ago are now above the $100m mark,” said one Greek banker closely connected with the industry.

Thanks mainly to improved transport and telecommunications and increasing numbers of well qualified finance and shipping specialists, Athens has become an attractive base.

The quality of life has also improved. “Until recently, it couldn’t compare with western Europe,” said Stefano Nicolaou, a Greek lawyer.

The €4bn ($6bn, £3bn) spent on infrastructure for the 2004 Olympics, including new metro and motorway links from the airport, has transformed the city’s transit systems. With fewer cars in the centre, atmospheric pollution levels have fallen.

Shipping company headquarters are no longer clustered exclusively in Athens’s port of Piraeus but are scattered around city suburbs near to the ship owners’ homes.

“The telecoms have been fixed, commuting isn’t a problem any more, office space is much better quality. Over the past 10 years ­Athens has become a shipping centre to compare with Oslo, Singapore or Hong Kong,” said George Economou, chairman of DryShips, an Athens-based company listed on the New York stock exchange.

The wealth created by the Asia boom is also helping to reverse a negative image of Greeks operating elderly, badly maintained ships and showing little concern for the environment.

“Aggressive renewal has improved the quality of the Greek fleet and management has become more corporate,” said Paul Mylonas, chief economist at National Bank of Greece.

A maritime cluster of ­shipping services is taking shape as more lawyers, ­brokers and insurers move to Athens, joining a well-established ship financing sector, according to Angeliki Frangou, chief executive of Navios Maritime, which is listed in New York.

Ms Frangou, who co-ordinates her company’s operations in Uruguay, the US and Belgium from an office overlooking Piraeus harbour, said shipping is becoming a more prestigious business in Greece.

“The main reason for being in Athens is the wealth of young professional talent that’s available,” she says. “In the City [of London] or New York, you’d be competing with hedge funds or Wall Street. Here, a big shipping company is a top-tier employer.”

The Financial Times Limited