Business interests
Vardinogiannis joined his family's enterprise in the 1970s and helped it expand. The firm's growth was strengthened by his entering into a partnership with Aramco in the 1990s.[12] Vardinogiannis and his relatives spread their net worldwide and control numerous successful companies in a variety of sectors. The interests include petroleum, shipping, banking, media, real estate, hotels, publishing and charity work. As of 2015, the Vardinogiannis family had stakes in 98 companies in total in Greece and abroad.[13]
The Vardinogiannis brothers owned the merchant ship Ioanna V which, in 1966, broke the United Nations-imposed and British-enforced embargo on Rhodesia by bringing in oil to the Portuguese Mozambique port of Beira, which was connected with landlocked Rhodesia by a pipeline. This move yielded huge profits to the Group.[14]
In subsequent years the four brothers continued to extend the group, staying away from publicity. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the group expanded in the new independent states of the Eastern Bloc, obtaining contracts for the opening of new highways in Ukraine and Georgia.
Together with George Bobolas, Christos Lambrakis, Christos Tegopoulos and Vardis Vardinogiannis, Alafouzos was one of the five founding members of the Teletypos company who created the first private Greek television channel, Mega TV. This began broadcasting in November 1989.
