Wall Street Journal
July 12, 2011
If you've ever wondered why so many Greeks succeed in shipping, John Coustas has a plausible theory: "Greek shipping has nothing to do with the Greek state."
His firm Danaos Corporation is a case in point. Mr. Coustas took over the container-ship owner from his father in 1987 and has since transformed it from a three-vessel outfit into the third-largest company of its kind in the world, with a fleet of 56 ships and a market capitalization of $566.8 million. Danaos is incorporated in the Marshall Islands, a popular and stable jurisdiction for the globalized industry, and handles many of its operations through its German, Ukrainian, Russian and Tanzanian offices.
The fact that Mr. Coustas's fortune doesn't depend on the fate of his small Mediterranean country doesn't make him any less concerned about what is happening to it. The government is on the brink of default after passing its latest round of spending cuts and tax hikes. EU leaders are debating just how punitive to make the terms of its second emergency loan in as many years. And while Athens resembles a First World capital when framed in the picture windows of Mr. Coustas's sixth-floor office, at eye-level it is littered with garbage and low-quality graffiti, its infrastructure crumbling from neglect and more than a year of semi-regular rioting. Three bankers were killed in a firebomb attack last year, and politicians of the left and the right alike fear to walk the streets.
The biggest risk to Greece is brain drain, that "all the good people, who really have something to offer, are either leaving or seriously considering it," says the father of four. "What we want is to be able to continue to live in this country." Right now that outcome is not assured.
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