Loucas Haji Ioannou Bio

Loucas Haji Ioannou Bio was a Greek-Cypriot shipping entrepreneur. He was one of the few Greek shipping owners who dominated the global shipping industry for much of the 20th century.

He was the father of Stelios Haji Ioannou, founder of EasyJet airline.

Loucas Haji Ioannou Bio Family

Born to a poor Greek Cypriot family in the village of Pedoulas on September 15, 1927, Loucas Haji Ioannou was the oldest of 12 children in the farming family.

Loucas Haji Ioannou Bio Career

Loucas Haji Ioannou left the village school aged 17 and worked as a salesman until 1950.

His uncle who was a trader by profession hired him as an accountant. He would later be appointed as a manager of his uncle’s office located in Saudi Arabia.

Loucas Haji Ioannou would later start his own import-export business in Saudi Arabia after the death of his uncle.

During that time, it was hard to be permitted to trade within Saudi Arabia without partnering with a local.

Nevertheless, he became one of the few foreign businessmen to achieve that.

In 1950 during the construction boom, Loucas Haji Ioannou became the only importer of Heracles and Titan cement.

He moved to London in 1959 and ventured into the shipping industry.

He first bought a 10,500-ton dry cargo ship which he named Nedi, after his wife.

By 1965, he had grown from the one cargo ship to a fleet of more than 20 cargo vessels and became an important client of British shipbrokers, notably Clarkson plc.

He would later relocate to Athens where it dawned on him that the future of the shipping industry was in international oil trade.

It was in 1969 that he bought his first tanker and in the next 10 years that followed, he became a big force in the market.

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