Vardis Vardinoyannis, a Greek businessman who built his family’s oil-refining operation into one of the country’s most successful companiesduckwin online casino, 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.
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