Who Owns Greece’s Ports? The Companies and Billionaires Behind Them
Tasos Kokkinidis | September 1, 2026
Greece’s ports are becoming some of the most closely watched pieces of infrastructure in the Eastern Mediterranean. But the ownership map is more complicated than the simple idea that Greece has “sold its ports” to foreign companies.
At Piraeus, Chinese shipping giant COSCO remains the dominant private operator. In Thessaloniki, a Greek businessman sits behind the controlling shareholder. At Heraklion and Igoumenitsa, the Italian Grimaldi group has taken majority stakes. Elsewhere, the Greek state continues to own the port authorities outright.
The result is a maritime network in which Greek state ownership, Greek private capital and international shipping companies increasingly overlap.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis offered a concise description of the government’s approach at the Posidonia maritime exhibition in June 2026.
“We are proud of the dynamism of the ports of Piraeus, Thessaloniki, Igoumenitsa, Heraklion and Kavala, under the management of international port operators,” he said.
That sentence captures the central shift in Greece’s port strategy: international operators are no longer unusual participants in the country’s maritime infrastructure. They are becoming part of the model.
Piraeus: the Chinese-controlled giant
Piraeus remains the most prominent example. COSCO Shipping holds 67% of Piraeus Port Authority, giving the Chinese shipping group control of the company operating Greece’s largest port. The Greek state, through Growthfund, retains a minority stake.
But Piraeus does not need another lengthy examination of the COSCO story here. Greek Reporter has recently covered the Chinese company’s role extensively.
What matters for the wider ownership picture is that Piraeus established a model that Greece has subsequently used elsewhere: a private or international operator takes control of the port authority while the Greek state retains an important role through ownership and concession arrangements.
Mitsotakis has defended that model while acknowledging the geopolitical questions surrounding Piraeus.
In a February 2026 interview, he put it unusually plainly: “The Chinese control the Port of Piraeus.” But he immediately added: “We respect the contracts that were signed by previous governments.”
That distinction is important. The question surrounding Greece’s ports is not simply who owns the land. It is who controls the companies that operate and develop the country’s strategic gateways.
Thessaloniki: The Savvidis family’s Greek port
If Piraeus is the clearest example of a foreign shipping company controlling a major Greek port, Thessaloniki tells a different story.
The controlling force behind Greece’s second-largest port is Ivan Savvidis, the businessman who built his fortune in Russia and has become one of the most powerful private investors in northern Greece.
The corporate structure is complicated. Belterra Investments, part of the Savvidis group, controls the family’s position in South Europe Gateway Thessaloniki (SEGT), which holds the controlling 67% stake in Thessaloniki Port Authority. The remaining consortium interest is associated with Terminal Link, the French port operator linked to CMA CGM.
Nikos Savvidis is the more visible corporate figure in parts of the structure, but the controlling force is his father, Ivan Savvidis. Recent reporting on the port’s ownership and the battle for additional shares has consistently identified Ivan Savvidis as the principal shareholder and decision-maker behind the Savvidis interest.
That distinction matters because Thessaloniki is not simply another case of an international shipping company taking over a Greek port. It is the story of a powerful Greek business family building control over a strategic gateway to the Balkans.
The importance of the port has only increased. Thessaloniki is Greece’s principal northern maritime gateway, with connections toward the Balkans and Central and Eastern Europe. Its strategic value has also made its ownership increasingly sensitive, particularly because of Ivan Savvidis’s background and his long-standing links to Russia.
The ownership question became particularly visible in 2025, when the French Louis-Dreyfus family sought to acquire a substantial minority stake in the listed port authority. The move created an unusual contest around Thessaloniki: the Dreyfus family seeking a larger position while the Savvidis camp moved to defend its control.
That makes Thessaloniki perhaps the most intriguing ownership story in Greece’s port network. Piraeus is associated with Chinese state-backed shipping capital; Thessaloniki is associated with the Savvidis family’s Greek-Russian business empire.
Heraklion: Grimaldi takes control in Crete
The picture changes again in Crete. In September 2024, the Greek state completed the sale of a 67% stake in Heraklion Port Authority to a consortium consisting of Grimaldi Euromed and Minoan Lines for €80 million. Growthfund retained 33%.
The transaction brought one of Europe’s major shipping groups into control of the company operating one of Crete’s most important ports.
The state retains minority ownership while the private operator takes on the responsibility for developing and exploiting the port under the agreed concession framework.
For Crete, the implications extend beyond cargo. Heraklion is simultaneously a commercial port, a ferry gateway and an important cruise destination. Whoever controls its development therefore has a role in shaping a major part of the island’s connection with the rest of Greece and the wider Mediterranean.
Igoumenitsa: Italy’s Grimaldi group expands its Greek footprint
In the north- west, Grimaldi has another major foothold. In 2023, a consortium led by Grimaldi Euromed and Minoan Lines acquired 67% of Igoumenitsa Port Authority. The Greek state retained 33%.
At the time, Grimaldi’s president and managing director Emanuele Grimaldi described the acquisition as the beginning of a new phase.
“We are ready and especially proud to start a new page in the story of the Igoumenitsa Port Authority.” He said the objective was to help the port fulfill its potential as a major gateway for European trade routes.
The Greek government presented the transaction in similarly ambitious terms. Then-Maritime Minister Giannis Plakiotakis called it: “another important milestone”
in the government’s plan for developing Greece’s ports, pointing to the potential for investment, jobs and increased passenger and commercial traffic.
The government sees privatization as a development tool; the private operator sees the port as a strategic asset to be expanded.
A port is not simply “owned” by one company
This is where the Greek system can become confusing. When people say that a foreign company “owns” a Greek port, they may actually be talking about several different things. There is the underlying public infrastructure. There is the port authority, the company that has the right to manage and exploit the port. And there are individual terminals, facilities and concessions, which may have separate operating arrangements.
This distinction is particularly important when comparing Greece’s ports. A company can control a port authority without owning every piece of land or infrastructure associated with the port.
That is why the ownership map needs to be read alongside the concession agreements.
Most of Greece’s major ports remain in state hands
Outside the headline privatizations, the Greek state remains a major port owner.
Growthfund’s portfolio includes state-owned port authorities at Alexandroupolis, Kavala, Volos, Patras, Rafina, Corfu and Elefsina.
The state also retains minority positions in the port authorities of Piraeus, Thessaloniki, Heraklion and Igoumenitsa. This produces a striking map:
The picture is therefore not one of wholesale foreign ownership. It is a hybrid system.
Greece wants international operators—but not only for Piraeus
The government’s current thinking was particularly clear at Posidonia 2026. Mitsotakis highlighted not only Piraeus but Thessaloniki, Igoumenitsa, Heraklion and Kavala as ports operating under international port operators.
He also pointed to interest in Elefsina and Lavrio, while stressing that smaller island ports matter too.
The message is significant. Greece sees its ports as part of a much larger logistics network connecting the Mediterranean with the Balkans and wider Europe.
A few days later, following a meeting with Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev, Mitsotakis described his vision of a land corridor connecting Greece’s ports through Bulgaria and Romania and extending toward Ukraine.
He stressed that some of the ports involved were private investments or already under concession, and that potential participation by Bulgarian entities would be a matter for the private concessionaires.
The ports are therefore becoming pieces of a much larger regional infrastructure puzzle.
The new Greek port map
The most interesting thing about Greece’s ports may not be that foreigners have acquired stakes in them. It is that different kinds of capital now control different pieces of the country’s maritime network.
China’s COSCO dominates Piraeus. Greek private capital, through the Belterra structure, controls Thessaloniki.
Italy’s Grimaldi group has major positions at Heraklion and Igoumenitsa. And the Greek state remains the owner of numerous other port authorities.
At the same time, Athens wants these ports to function not as isolated facilities but as gateways into a larger European transportation network.
That is why the question “Who owns Greece’s ports?” has become increasingly important.
The answer is not simply Greece, China or Italy. It is all three—along with a growing network of concessions, investment groups and international port operators that are reshaping the country’s maritime gateways.
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