NEW YORK – The world’s fascination with Greek shipping magnates continues, the latest spotlight shining on Evangelos Marinakis and George Prokopiou, who are featured among non-Greeks in an article in the Wall Street Journal. Costas Paris’ headline reads: ‘Flush With Cash, Shipping Magnates Invest in Real Estate, Media and Soccer’ and his subhead adds: ‘Shipowners park money on land ahead of expected drop in freight rates’.

Paris begins by noting: “Shipping magnates made billions of dollars in profits during the pandemic and the war in Gaza. Now they’re bringing those proceeds back to dry land. Shipping owners often invest profits into modernizing their fleets with multimillion-dollar orders at Asian shipyards, but a surplus of ships ordered in the past five years is set to depress freight rates. That is prompting a new wave of diversification by shipowners, who typically go on buying sprees when they are flush with cash. Now they are pouring money into news outlets, real estate and soccer clubs.”

The article says of Prokopiou that he has about 80 tankers and owns hundreds of real-estate properties around the world. Forbes lists his personal at $2.6 billion.

The Journal notes that “in July, he made another real-estate play, buying a 2% stake in Greek property developer Lamda Development for €25 million. Lamda is developing a site of around 6.2 million square meters (66.7 million square feet) on the location of the old Athens airport at the city’s beachfront that the developer says will include residences, shopping centers, schools and hospitals.”

Marinakis, Paris writes, “is doubling down on soccer. Marinakis is the founder and chairman of Capital Maritime & Trading, which operates more than 130 ships and has holdings in media, renewable energy and sports. Marinakis bought Premier League soccer club Nottingham Forest in 2017, when it was on the brink of being relegated to English soccer’s third tier. He has since spent more than $300 million to improve the team.”

And he is planning to build a new, 50,000-seat stadium.

According to the article, “the earnings of the world’s top 10 container lines more than quadrupled in 2021 and 2022 to an average of $158 billion a year as consumers in the U.S. and Europe spent heavily on manufactured products during Covid-19 lockdowns and there weren’t enough ships to move them. The companies made an average $37.5 billion a year in operating profit between 2000 and 2020, according to data provider Statista.”

While freight rates began to fall last year, they “shot back up after hundreds of ships sailing from Asia to Europe were diverted from the Red Sea and the Suez Canal because of the Iran-backed Houthi attacks in Yemen on commercial ships. The vessels now take a longer route around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, adding an average of two weeks in sailing time.”

But the situation may be about to change again. Paris notes that “freight rates – and shipowners’ profits – are expected to drop when the Red Sea reopens. The longer sailing distances have required shipowners to put more ships in the water. Once the diversions stop, there will be a surplus of ships at sea, said Jonathan Roach, a container analyst at London-based brokerage Braemar.”

But Greek shipping magnates, as always, will know what to do.