Vardis Vardinoyannis, a Greek businessman who built his family’s oil-refining operation into one of the country’s most successful companies, and then used his wealth to support philanthropic causes and cultivate close relations with the Kennedy family, died on Tuesday in Athens. He was 90.
His family announced his death in a statement but did not provide the exact location or cause of death.
Like two other world-famous Greek businessmen of the previous century, Stavros Niarchos and Aristotle Onassis, Mr. Vardinoyannis (sometimes rendered as Vardinogiannis) amassed his wealth through shipping. In his case, it was through the refining and transportation of oil and oil-based products around the world.
The Vardinoyannis Group, his family company, started in the mid-1960s with a single refining facility in Crete. Over time, it added a tanker fleet and later branched out into hotels, banking and media, gaining a controlling interest in one of Greece’s leading TV stations, Star, and a minority stake in another, Mega.
The vast scope of Mr. Vardinoyannis’s business interests made him one of Europe’s most powerful men, though he remained largely outside the international spotlight, cultivating the image of a quiet family man. When his picture appeared in the society pages, it was almost always at the side of his wife, Marianna, or his son and business heir, Giannis.
His friendship with the Kennedy family was especially deep. He and his wife were early supporters of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, a nonprofit organization founded to promote civic activism soon after Senator Kennedy’s assassination in 1968.
In 1999, Mr. Vardinoyannis stepped in after the wedding of Rory Kennedy, Senator Kennedy’s youngest daughter, was canceled following the death of her cousin John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette, in a plane crash off Martha’s Vineyard while on their way to the nuptials.
Mr. Vardinoyannis offered his estate outside Athens as an alternative location, and two weeks later, Ms. Kennedy wed Mark Bailey there in a small, private ceremony.
“Vardis was a fierce defender of democracy,” wrote Kerry Kennedy, Rory Kennedy’s sister, on Instagram. “His enormous generosity and courage were matched by his love of country, and his contributions in the business, economic, cultural, and charitable arenas were transformative for Greece.”
Vardis John Vardinoyannis was born on Dec. 4, 1933, outside Rethymno, a city on the northern coast of Crete, to Iannis and Chrysis (Theodoroutakis) Vardinoyannis. His father was a businessman.
He graduated from Greece’s Naval Cadet School in 1955 and entered what was then the Royal Hellenic Navy. He rose rapidly, and by 1967 was a rear admiral.
That same year, a group of right-wing colonels overthrew the Greek government in a coup. They rounded up political opponents and exiled many of them to remote islands in the Aegean, using the Navy to transport them.
When Mr. Vardinoyannis resisted those orders, he was forced to resign and exiled to the island of Amorgos, along with his wife and their three children.
Mrs. Vardinoyannis, to whom he was married for 62 years, died in 2023. Mr. Vardinoyannis is survived by their children, Giannis, Christianna, George, Nikos and Vardianna; his brother George; his sister Eleni; and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
A few years after his exile, Mr. Vardinoyannis was allowed to return to Athens. He joined the Vardinoyannis Group, then run by his brother Nikos, where he oversaw the company’s shipping operation.
He also surreptitiously supported former naval colleagues who were plotting against the military junta. The so-called Navy Movement was eventually crushed; several officers were imprisoned and tortured, while more were forced to resign. Mr. Vardinoyannis hired many of them to work in his shipping business.
In 1972, the Vardinoyannis family founded Motor Oil Hellas, a refining business with a large facility outside Corinth. Nikos Vardinoyannis died unexpectedly at 42 in 1973, leaving Mr. Vardinoyannis in charge of the company.
With tycoons like Mr. Niarchos and Mr. Onassis dominating shipping, Mr. Vardinoyannis decided to shift his company’s focus to refining. He built the Corinth facility into Greece’s second-largest refinery, and branched out into related fields like industrial lubricants and jet fuel.
As the scope of the Vardinoyannis Group grew, he and his wife expanded their philanthropic efforts. Among other projects, they established the first children’s oncology unit in the country, funded scholarships to study Greek culture and supported relief efforts after forest fires devastated the country in 2018.
Mr. Vardinoyannis had a brush with death in 1990, when members of 17 November, a far-left terrorist group, ambushed his car in Athens. Although the armored Mercedes was hit with a car bomb and rockets, everyone inside survived unscathed.
In a comment to reporters after the attack, Mr. Vardinoyannis, an avid soccer fan, said the group’s attempt to kill him was as if Dimitrios Saravakos, a legendary Greek forward, had “shot a penalty and hit the crossbar” — so close, but not close enough.
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