Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

100

Ioanna Sapfo Pepelasis
AUEB (Greece)

Dimitrios Varvaritis
Independent Scholar (Switzerland)

An unexplored facet of international business in Greece:

Foreign and diaspora shareholders in joint stock company

start-ups, 1833-1920
1

Abstract

This article focuses on an unexplored aspect of the history of international business in Greece, the

presence of international shareholders in Greek Joint stock company start-ups. Our main findings are

that these investors participated in numerous such firms usually as minority shareholders in capital

and/or knowledge intensive firms. Rarely did they opt for the exclusive international ownership of a

joint stock company in Greece and the dividing line between foreign direct investment and foreign

portfolio investment was not always clear. It is also the case that international capital inflow into the

nascent corporate sector involved a mosaic of collaborating actors including not only the foreign but

also the diasporic.

Keywords: Greece; Joint Stock Company; Start-up; International Shareholders; Diaspora; Business

Strategy.

Corresponding author. E-mail: ioannasapfopepelasis@gmail.com

Received 12 April 2016 - Accepted 03 June 2016

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No
Derivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-comercial re-use and
distribution, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered or transformed in any way.

1
This article is an outgrowth of research conducted under the First EU funded Basic Research project at the

Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB) in 2010. We wish to thank the ‘Association of Greek

Commercialists’ (i.e. Commercial Attorneys) for funding, Mara Vidali (AUEB) for research assistance and Kalli

Ralli for editing assistance. Finally we would like to thank the organisers and participants for comments on our

presentation of an earlier version of the article at the Workshop ‘ International Business in Southern Europe in a

Long Term Perspective’, University of Barcelona, November 24, 2015.

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

101

Introduction

On the basis of a new dataset this article examines for the first time, the presence of

international (namely, foreign and diaspora) shareholders in Joint stock company (or Société

Anonyme) start-ups in Greece – a small, latecomer country born into debt and perennially

subject to external financial dependence.
2

The starting (1833) and the end points (1920) of this article constitute critical junctures in the

historical trajectory of the Greek state. 1833 marks the opening of the reign of the country's

first monarch, Otto, the young son of King Ludwig of Bavaria. Otto inaugurated a period of

modernising, albeit autocratic rule. And 1920 represents, with the landing of the Greek army

in Smyrna/Izmir, the high endpoint of Greek irredentism in the Near East. 1920 marks

furthermore a significant milestone in Greek legal and business history namely, the

introduction of a Company Act (Law 2190). Until that time the relevant law governing joint

stock companies in Greece was derived from the Napoleonic Commercial Code of 1807

(Karavas 1930; Angelopoulos 1928; Franghiadis 2007).

The core questions we address are: 1) In which joint stock company (henceforth, JSC) start-

ups were there at least one international shareholder (IS) within the shareholder base? 2) In

what sectors and geographical locations were these start-ups based? 3) What were the

features of the body of international shareholders and what was the business profile of the

main players in this cohort? 4) What were the interlinkages between international investors

in the nascent corporate sector and sovereign borrowing?

From this point onwards, the article is organised as follows. The next section provides a brief

review of the literature. An outline of the external financial dependence of the Greek state is

2
For why we define international as foreign and diaspora see in the text Section three.

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

102

given in the third section. We make a detailed description of our sources, data base

construction and methodology in Section four. The fifth section presents the findings of our

statistical analysis of the dataset. In section six we focus on biographical information on

selected key international shareholders. Section seven explores interconnections between

international investment in the nascent corporate sector and players involved in the raising of

foreign loan capital for the state. In the conclusion we offer some thoughts on the wider

implications of our research results.

The literature

Within the large and diverse historiographical output concerning the economy of Greece,

international business and the rise of the joint stock company have traditionally been

examined as separate strands of research with minimal overlap.
3
On the first theme most

research has focused on the macroeconomic and diplomatic aspects of sovereign borrowing,

foreign debt accumulation and defaults (Stephanidis 1930; Pepelasis Minoglou 1995, 2002;

Pandelakis 1995; Dertilis 2009). In parallel with this line of research, the topic of foreign

investment in Greek business has been examined from the following angles. Anastasios

Yiannitsis (1977) opened the way with his general survey on foreign direct investment (FDI)

and more specialised research subsequently followed.

Among the pertinent works that stand out are the studies on the construction of railways

(Papayiannakis 1982) and the Corinth Canal (Papayiannopoulou 1989) as well as the

schemes for Electrification (Pandelakis 1991) and the drainage and development of the Lake

Copais region (Melios 1987).

3
For recent efforts to combine both see: Foreman-Peck and Pepelasis (2013); Pepelasis and Varvaritis (2016).

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

103

Other scholars, such as Agriantonis (1986), have incorporated extensive references to foreign

entrepreneurial pioneers and specifically their activities concerning Greece’s industrialisation

while several monographs have addressed the corresponding activities of a number of

diaspora families involved in shipping and merchant banking (Dertilis 1989; Chatzioannou

2003; Agriantonis and Chatzioannou 1997; Harlaftis 1996; Kostis and Tsokopoulos 1988).

Foreign and diaspora investors have furthermore left us a number of memoirs and related

writings such as the autobiographies of the diaspora merchants Andreas Syngros (Syngros

1998) and Dimitrios Vikelas (Vikelas 1997) and the British landowning family the Noels of

Euboea (Noel-Baker 2000).

As for the rise of the joint stock company in Greece the literature on this theme is relatively

small. This may be explained by the fact that historically, and indeed even today, the great

majority of Greek firms are sole partnership or broader family firms that stand outside the

corporate sector (Pepelasis 2011; Pepelasis and Protogerou 2016). The first relevant studies

on the joint stock company appeared in the early twentieth century (Angelopoulos 1928;

Karavas 1930) and encompassed a principally legalistic approach. More recent works have

however focused their attention on related aspects such as for example the formation of

industrial capital (Tsotsoros 1994), the long-term development of the Greek state (Dertilis

2009) and the networks active in the international investment in Greece in the interwar

period (Pepelasis-Minoglou 2002a).

What is however lacking in this literature is a quantitative approach embracing all economic

sectors of the Greek corporate sector. The eradication of the latter gap is now the object of

intense research of a special project at the Athens University of Economics and Business

(henceforth AUEB) through the creation of comprehensive datasets derived from the charters

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

104

of JSC start-ups (1830-1929) and balance sheets (1927-1936). Various facets of the evolution

of the joint stock company have been examined up to this point (as for example Pepelasis

2010a, 2011; Pepelasis and Aivalis 2014). But none has selectively addressed the issue of the

participation of international investment in JSC start-ups. The most relevant to the theme of

this article, and indeed based on the above AUEB project, has been a recent study which has

documented the basic contours of Jewish founding shareholders (Pepelasis and Varvaritis

2016).

Turning to the area of international literature, there has been extensive historical research on

both international business and the joint stock company. A considerable number of scholars

have examined these themes concurrently often focusing their studies on the multinational

corporation (Micklethwait and Wooldridge 2003; Langlois 2007; Jones 2007; Neal and

Williamson 2015; Miravitlles and Zhang 2016). Other topics addressed in the international

literature that are relevant to the research presented in this article are international

comparisons (Amatori and Colli 2011); the role of regulation in foreign investment (Chang

2004) the economics of information and the related networks of trust within commercial

diasporas. In fact, the international literature has taken note of how, as a force, the Greek

Diaspora enhanced globalization (Jones 2007; Godley 2006). That said, the particular niche

examined in this article namely, international investment in the local corporate sector of a

peripheral economy, does not figure prominently in the literature. Yet despite this lack of

prominence it remains possible that this niche may, in the future, be integrated into the

emerging and newer literature that approaches the study of international business in a more

evolutionary and holistic manner (Miravitlles and Zhang 2016).

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

105

A succinct historical outline of foreign borrowing by the state

The initial presence of international business in Greece may be dated from the period when

the Greek state itself did not exist, but was in a process of formation and it was exclusively

situated within the London-based International finance sector. During the nearly decade long

rebellion against the Ottoman Empire (1821-1830), better known as the War of

Independence, the Greek rebel leadership managed to raise a loan in London for the purposes

of the war effort. The Greeks however defaulted on this loan in 1827 thereby setting a

precedent that was repeated by the state on two further occasions in the same century,

namely in the foreign debt defaults of 1843 and 1893 (Chatzioannou 2013; Lazaretou 2013;

Pepelasis Minoglou 1995).

The repetitive pattern of heavy foreign borrowing followed by default directly affected

Greece’s overall economic position, thereby placing significant fetters on the ability of the

state to borrow and implement economic policies of its own choosing.

In the case of the 1843 default, Greece was excluded from the international capital markets

until 1879 while following the 1893 default an International Financial Commission (IFC)

was imposed in 1898. This IFC supervised Greek monetary and fiscal policy and was

imposed by a number of Greece’s creditors following the latter’s military defeat in a war

with the Ottoman Empire (1897) and the resultant inability of Greece to pay a large war

indemnity to the Porte.

Heavy foreign borrowing by the Greek state, (which had been temporarily halted in 1894)

resumed unabated until the outbreak of the Balkan Wars (1912-3) (Pepelasis Minoglou 1995;

Dertlis 2009). It is against this background of financial dependence and eventual external

economic intervention in 1898 that the process of international participation in Greek

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

106

registered joint stock companies materialised.

Sources, data and methodology

This article makes use of one principle source namely, the founding charters of Greek joint

stock companies established in the period 1833-1920. These charters include the following

crucially significant information: company name and date of foundation, its place of

registration and nominal capital, the names, places of residence (or registration in the case of

company shareholders) and professions of its shareholders and finally the details of

shareholder proxies and notaries.

Although initially drafted by one or more notaries these charters acquired their legal force

through submission to the relevant authorities and subsequent approval and official

publication, by way of royal or ministerial decree, in the Government Gazette of Greece.

This process of submission and administrative ratification was inaugurated in 1836 with the

foundation of Greece’s first JSC the Patras-based marine insurance firm Achaiki Asfalistiki

tis Thalassoploias or Marine Insurance Company of Achaia and was furthermore maintained,

albeit with some variations, until the Company Act of 1920.

Taken as a whole, this collective body of charters allows us to document and analyse,

diachronically and spatially, certain repeated patterns and themes. Among these are the

quantity, sectoral and geographical dissemination of JSCs as well as the investment choices

and/or strategies of each JSC’s constituent shareholders.

Having set out above the nature and basic content of this article’s main primary source one

should also note its numerous weaknesses. Chief among these weaknesses are the evidentiary

gaps. A considerable number of charters do not include details concerning the profession,

residence (or registration in the case of legal entities) and indeed the individual nominal

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

107

capital of all of their shareholders while other charters do not list all their constituent

shareholders. A case in point is the charter founding the Ethniki Trapeza tis Ellados or

National Bank of Greece (1841). It lists for reasons presumably of state confidentiality the

Greek government as holding 1,000 shares while ‘other shareholders’ hold the remaining

1,600. Furthermore some charters do not list any shareholders while other charters include

groups of shareholders or syndicates. The existence of the latter groups further complicates

our ability to clearly identify and classify consistently all those participating persons,

whether legal or natural. As a consequence of the above limitations we do not have exact

figures concerning both the number of shareholders and indeed the corresponding total

capital of these shareholders. This also in turn affects our calculations and this factor should

be kept in mind. As the missing information concerns mostly the number and value of shares,

in our analysis we have not included any data on the nominal capital registered by

international shareholders per JSC/IS. Instead in the analysis that follows reference is made

to the total nominal capital of such start-ups.

Taken together the factors outlined immediately above do indeed endow our dataset with a

certain unevenness and inconsistency. That said, it does still however provide a fairly large,

but admittedly limited in parts, prism through which to study and analyse the broader

economic phenomenon of company formation and entrepreneurship in Greece.

Our starting point in the construction of the new dataset of JSCs with international investors

was the original body of JSC charters. This body contained 460 such charters. Upon a close

examination of this body of data, and specifically the shareholders details contained within

each charter, a selection was made of those JSC start-ups that included at least one

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

108

shareholder whose declared particulars displayed a connection to a foreign country or foreign

legal entity.

One such feature was, in the case of legal persons a verifiably foreign or non-Greek surname,

while in the case of legal persons it often was the place of company registration being

outside of Greece or the JSC start-up being the Greek subsidiary of a foreign registered

company. At this point we would like to go into some detail regarding what is meant by the

abovementioned words ‘connection to a foreign country’. Due to the peculiarity of Greece,

our body of international shareholders includes in addition to foreign investors (natural or

legal persons), members of the globally present Greek mercantile diaspora residing outside

Greece. We deemed it necessary to include members of this particular group within the

rubric of ‘international shareholders’, because their livelihood was positioned in the global

trade of bulk goods and shipping, and also because of their crucial participation in the issuing

of foreign loans to the Greek government.

Thus, the basic criterion for selection was the presence, at the moment of a JSC’s creation, of

a stated residential, registrational and/or personal factor connecting one or more

shareholder(s) to the wider international community. Through the application of this criterion

we were able to extract 119 JSC start-ups containing international investors that constitute

the principle dataset of this article.

The process of examination and selection was completed through the use of a previous

database containing all the particulars of shareholders in Greek JSC start-ups for the period

1833-1909. This database was created under the First EU funded Basic Research project at

AUEB (For the first results from this data base see: Pepelasis Minoglou 2010). For the

remaining period (1910-1920) no such analogous database existed and so the relevant

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

109

volumes of the Government Gazette were checked manually. In the course of checking these

volumes initial guidance was provided by the work of Enta Angelopoulou (2003).

That said, in arriving at this dataset a certain number of JSC start-ups had to be excluded.

These were 15 in total and the reason they were excluded is two-fold. The factual matrix of

their shareholder base was such that of the often numerous shareholders whose surnames

were foreign none could be securely verified as foreign to Greece and thus in such an

eventuality the corresponding JSC was excluded.

In closing, we must note that in the next Section we analyse our collected data through two

perspectives: The first takes as its unit of analysis JSC/II startups. The second perspective

focuses on the characteristics of the body of international shareholders. In order to ‘weigh the

significance’ of our findings on the presence of international business in the nascent

corporate sector we also make comparisons with the aggregate figures provided for

incorporation in the data bases used for the following studies: Pepelasis Minoglou (2010),

Pepelasis (2011) and Pepelasis and Aivalis (2014).

Statistical analysis of the database

Part one: Mapping joint stock company (JSC) start-ups in which there was an international

shareholder (IS)

Number of JSC/IS start-ups

Between 1833 and 1920 the total number of joint stock company start-ups with at least one

international shareholder (henceforth, JSC/IS) was 119. This amounted to a little under one

third of the total population of JSC births in Greece at the time. As Table 1 below

demonstrates the number of births fluctuated over time and the two peak decades in the

numbers of JSC/IS births were the 1860s/1870s and more significantly the 1910s. The first of

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

110

these two high waves began as a precursor to the incorporation boom of 1872-3, whereas the

second coincided with the start of the take-off in JSC births in the country (Pepelasis and

Aivalis 2014). How can this pattern be interpreted? Were international investors

exceptionally sensitive to rising opportunities in Greece? Did they lead by example,

influencing others (i.e. local Greeks) to engage in incorporation? Perhaps both processes

were at work. It is not easy to interpret this pattern and assess how much foresight

international shareholders had and to what extent they led the way, influencing local Greeks

to engage in incorporation.

Table 1. Geographical Distribution by Decade of JSC/IS start-ups

Decade

Number

JSC/IS

Start-

ups

A
th

e
n

P
a

tr
a

E
r
m

o
u

p
o

li
s

P
ir

a
ie

u
s

T
in

o
s

A
r
g

o
st

o
li

T
h

e
ss

a
lo

n
ik

C
o

r
fu

M
it

il
in

A
e
g

N
e
o

F
a

li
r
o

C
o

n
st

a
n

ti
n

o
p

P
a

r
is

1840 1 1

1850 5 1 2 2

1860 19 2 7 7 2 1

1870 18 15 2 1

1880 9 6 1 1 1

1890 8 4 1 1 1

1900 27 20 4 2 1

1910 38 26 1 8 1 1 1

Total 119 72 15 10 13 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Source: Compiled from selected issues of the Greek Government Gazette (1833-1920)

Nominal capital of JSC/IS start-ups

The share of JSC/IS start-ups in the total nominal capital of all JSC start-ups founded in the

period under review was 70 percent. Moreover, given that the mean nominal capital of

JSC/IS start-ups was more than double the respective figure for the total population of JSC

start-ups, it appears then that international investors showed a preference for participating in

large start-ups.

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

111

The peak decade in the total nominal capital of JSC/IS start-ups was the 1880s. This perhaps

was not coincidental as 1879 marked the beginning of massive foreign borrowing by the

Greek state and also the building of a national railway network (Pandelakis1995; Pepelasis

Minoglou 1995). In fact, in 1881 the largest JSC start-up in the period under review was set

up in Athens. This was the ‘Trapeza Constantinoupoleos’ (Bank of Constantinople) a branch

of the ‘Banque de Constantinople’ (founded in the capital of the Ottoman Empire in

1847/52).

Between 1870 and 1910 the share of all JSC/IS start-ups in the total nominal capital of

incorporation was larger than that of JSCs without an IS for the respective period. Thus, this

‘40 year high point’ was situated chronologically in the pre WWI upswing of international

capital flows on a global level (Jones 2007).

Place of registration of JSC/IS start-ups

Between 1833 and 1920 the geography of registration for JSC/IS start-ups was rather narrow

compared to what was the case for the total population of JSC births. In total, it was

distributed among only fourteen cities, (two of which were outside Greece) and it was largely

absent in small urban centres. Registration was also far more concentrated in Athens than

what was the general case for incorporation. Initially, the ports of Patras (Greece’s main

export port) and Ermoupolis (the centre of transit trade) were more popular than Athens, a

status they both lost from the 1870s onwards. (See again Table 1)

Sectoral distribution of JSC/IS start-ups

For the period as a whole the bulk of JSC/IS start-ups was more or less evenly distributed

among: insurance, large commerce, banking, industry, mining and shipping. Land transport

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

112

(railways) was also significant and in fact this was a sector in which all companies were of a

JSC/IS type.

Compared to what was the case with the total population of JSC births, in our cohort there

was a lower overall presence of insurance. In contrast, there was a higher involvement in:

large commerce plus all the more capital and knowledge intensive sectors mentioned already

in the previous paragraph.

However, in spite of this overall difference, the shifts in sectoral orientation of JSC/IS start-

ups over the decades reflected more general trends within the nascent corporate sector.

Notably, insurance nearly monopolised the interest of international investment up to 1870

and in banking and mining it peaked in the 1870s. International participation in railways

peaked in the 1880s and in commerce, industry and shipping the 1910s were the high point.

Table 2. Sectoral Distribution by Decade of JSC/IS start-ups

Decade

Number

of JSCs

Start-

ups In
su

r
a

n
c
e

C
o

m
m

e
r
c
e

B
a

n
k

In
d

u
st

r
y

M
e
r
c
h

a
n

M
a

r
in

L
a

n
d

T
r
a

n
sp

o
r
t

T
o

u
r
is

C
o

n
st

r
u

c
ti

o
n

O
th

e
r

1840 1

1850 5 3

1 1

1860 19 15 1 2

1870 18 2

6 2 1

1880 9

1 2 1 4

1890 5 1

0 1 1 1

1900 24

6 3 2 4 1

1 2

1910 38

12 2 10 8

1 1

Total 119 21 19 15 18 16 6 1 2 4

Source: Compiled from selected issues of the Greek Government Gazette (1833-1920)

In sum, between 1833 and 1920 JSC/IS start-ups were significant in numbers and more

capital intensive than the average JSC start-up at the time. Their geographical distribution

was more concentrated in the larger cities and centres of incorporation; a reflection perhaps

of a desire of international shareholders to minimise transaction costs and overcome

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

113

assymetric information in a country which though born in the image of the West had an

idiosyncratic institutional and cultural make up.

Part two: Mapping the body of international shareholders in the nascent corporate sector

Total number and composition in terms of legal identity

The total number of international investors in the nascent corporate sector amounted to only

375, namely 3.5% of the total body of shareholders in JSC start-ups and 10% of the total

number of founders in JSC/IS in Greece in the period under review. Natural persons

comprised the largest group among international shareholders. In the early decades,

shareholders who were not natural persons were mostly merchant houses, whereas from

1870s onwards there was a growing presence in this category of banking, construction and

industrial firms.

Table 3. Number of shareholders by decade: Total, and international subgroup

(foreign+diaspora)

D
E

C
A

D
E

N
u

m
b

e
r

o
f

JS
C

/I
S

s
ta

rt
-u

p
s

Total Number of Shareholders Foreign Shareholders Diaspora Shareholders

N
a
tu

ra
l

P
e
rs

o
n

Legal Persons

C
o

m
b

in
a
ti

o
n
o

f
N

a
tu

ra
l

a
n

d
L

e
g

a
l

P
e
rs

o
n

T
o

ta
l

N
u

m
b

e
r

o
f

S
h

a
re

h
o

ld
e
rs

N
a
tu

ra
l

P
e
rs

o
n

Legal

Persons

C
o

m
b

in
a
ti

o
n
o

f
N

a
tu

ra
l

a
n

d
L

e
g

a
l

P
e
rs

o
n

T
o

ta
l

N
u

m
b

e
r

o
f

F
o

re
ig

S
h

a
re

h
o

ld
e
rs

N
a
tu

ra
l

P
e
rs

o
n

Legal

Persons
C

o
m

b
in

a
ti

o
n
o

f
N

a
tu

ra
l

a
n

d
L

e
g

a
l

P
e
rs

o
n

T
o

ta
l

N
u

m
b

e
r

o
f

D
ia

sp
o

S
h

a
re

h
o

ld
e
rs

C
o

m
p

a
n

ie
s

B
a
n

k
s

S
ta

te
I

n
st

it
u

ti
o

n
s

C
o

m
p

a
n

ie
s

B
a
n

k
s

C
o

m
p

a
n

ie
s

B
a
n

k
s

1840 1

1850 5 706 57 3 3 0 769 4 4 0 0 8 63 1 0 0 64

1860 19 1185 60 1 0 0 1246 21 2 0 0 23 21 0 0 0 21

1870 18 1127 53 10 2 2 1194 27 4 2 0 33 57 1 3 0 61

1880 9 106 1 17 0 0 124 9 1 3 0 13 19 2 3 0 24

1890 8 97 8 0 0 0 105 8 3 1 0 12 4 1 0 0 5

1900 27 75 13 4 0 0 92 24 5 2 0 31 15 0 0 0 15

1910 38 205 24 1 0 0 230 32 1 1 0 34 31 0 0 0 31

Total 119 3501 216 36 5 2 3756 125 20 9 0 154 210 5 6 0 221

Source: Compiled from selected issues of the Greek Government Gazette (1833-1920)

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

114

Occupation of international shareholders who were natural persons

Pre 1873 the main occupation of international shareholders were merchants. There was the

odd banker or banking agent and landowner. From 1873 onwards bankers became a main

occupational group among international investors. Also, there was a rise in the number of

industrialists, engineers and the rare manager/professional. Post 1900 shipping

agent/shipowners were an important force also in the international shareholding body.

Places of residence of international shareholders

The map of the residence of international investors incorporates an expansive geographical

spectrum stretching from the eastern seaboard of North America across the numerous cities

and ports of Europe’s main continental powers to the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea

littoral. This map includes, amongst others locales, Boston and New York in the United

States and London, Liverpool and Manchester in the United Kingdom. On the Western

European mainland it comprises Paris, Versailles, Marseille, Brussels, Braine-le-Comte

(Belgium), Amsterdam, Berlin, Geneva while in the Black Sea region we have the Russian

ports of Odessa and Rostov-on-Don and the cities of Braila, Bucharest, Galati/Galatz and

Chisinau/Kishinev within the Romanian Principalities. The adjoining Mediterranean and

Levant regions are represented by Rome, Livorno, Trieste, Malta, Alexandria, Tandah

(Egypt), the Ottoman cities of Constantinople/Istanbul, Smyrna/Izmir, Beirut, Mytilene and

Corfu within the British Protectorate of the Ionian Islands.

The most popular places of residence among foreign shareholders (who were not resident in

Greece) were the two largest international financial centres of the time (and providers of

substantial loan capital to the state), namely Paris and London (Stephanidis 1930) whereas

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

115

the founding shareholders who belonged to the mercantile diaspora were more widely

dispersed.

International shareholders per JSC/IS start-up

Although it is not possible with accuracy to estimate the size of capital provided by

international investors in JSC/IS start-ups, with some safety we have reached the conclusion

that in two thirds of the JSC/IS firms, international investors held less than 2%- and more

rarely 10%- of the total number of shares. In all likelihood this reflects the hesitance of

international investors to do business on their own in Greece. As mentioned above in the

text, they preferred to build collaborations with locals as a preemptive strategy in order to

minimise possible frictions with the local environment-given the cultural barriers and the

idiosyncratic legal framework- and to gain more easily access to information and the

chambers of political and economic power.

From the early 1870s onwards the picture somewhat changed as thereafter, in some JSC/IS

start-ups international shareholders held more substantial amounts of shares. The first

exclusively internationally owned JSC/IS was the Trapeza epi ton Kiniton Pisteos, The Bank

of Credit for Moveable Property (1872). Ten more such cases followed thereafter. In

chronological order they were as follows: Trapeza Constantinoupoleos, Bank of

Constantinople (1881); Ipposidirodromoi Athinon kai Perihoron, Horsedrawn Railways of

Athens and the suburbs (1884); Gallo-Elliniki Etaireia Kataskevis Ekriktikon Ylon kai

Chimikon Proionton,, Franco-Hellenic Company for the Production of Explosives and

Chemical Products (1893); Etaireia Ellinikon Sidirodromon, Hellenic Railways Company

(1902); Elliniki Etaireia Trohiodromon Athinon, Pireos kai Perihoron, Hellenic Tramways

Company for Athens, Piraeus and Suburbs, (1907); Achaiki Atmoploia, Shipping Company

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

116

of Achaia (1908); Etaireia ton Metalleion Vani, Mining Company of Vani (1908); Anglo-

Elliniki Atmoploia, Anglo-Hellenic Shipping (1910); Naftiki Anonymos Etaireia Laskaridis,

Laskaridis Shipping Co (1919); Vrettano Elliniki Trapezitiki, British Hellenic Banking Co

(1919).

Foreign and diaspora shareholders: Collaborators or ‘strangers’?

The number of JSC/IS startups in which international investor(s) were exclusively foreign

was 51 whereas only in 28 JSC/IS companies, did international presence consist exclusively

of diaspora Greeks. In 40 JSC/IS start-ups, both groups were concurrently present and this

was not a coincidence, as often members of the diaspora operated as the middlemen and

‘guarantors’ for foreigners, given the high risks involved for them in investing in a young

nation state which was untested and had a peculiar legacy combining remnants of Byzantine

and Ottoman institutional elements (Dertilis 2009; Pepelasis Minoglou 1995).

To a certain extent, the nascent corporate sector in this respect mirrored what was happening

in the realm of sovereign borrowing (Pandelakis 1995). It is known from the relevant

literature that the diaspora, due to its the key position in the large western financial centres of

the epoch, acted as a handmaiden and collaborator to foreign banks as underwriters.

The practice of shareholding by one international investor in more than one JSC start-up

In our dataset thirty six international investors were present in more than one JSC start-up.

This amounted to approximately one tenth of the total body of international shareholders.

Through the construction of a tree graph (too large to include in the article) the activities of

these thirty six international founding shareholders in the nascent corporate sector were

analysed. Based on this analysis our major observations are: There were two banks among

them, Erlanger & Co and the Bank of Constantinople, and one partnership, Fels & Co. (See

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

117

Section 6). The others were natural persons among whom twenty-two were members of the

diaspora. A ‘multiple’ international investor would have varying degrees of participation in

each of the JSC in which he/it would be present and would usually make his consecutive

investments within the time space of around six years. At an aggregate level there were three

waves in the phenomenon of multiple investments. In the first wave (1856-1866) the focus

was mainly on marine insurance. In the second (1872-3) it was on banking and in the third

(1882-1909) on railways and shipping.

Biographical material on major international shareholders

In what follows some basic factual data are provided for seven top shareholders for whom

we were able to find biographical and historical references: Giovanni Serpieri, Karl Kloebe,

Fels & Co, Theodor Hamburger, Emile Erlanger & Co, François Theophile Feraldi and

Andreas Syngros.

The Rimini-born engineer and entrepreneur Giovanni Battista Serpieri made his name (and

indeed the fortune of his family) in mining. Having discovered in 1863 the ancient mines of

Laurium north west of Athens he acquired exploratory and exploitation rights in consortium

with a French firm Roux et Cie of Marseilles (Grange 1994, I 453-454).

These mines yielded a considerable amount of lead and silver but there were also at the

centre of a major domestic political question in Greece, the Lavreotika or the Laurium

Affair. We find Serpieri investing in eight JSCs between 1869 and 1908, only three of which

were in mining the remainder concerned maritime insurance, banking and railway

construction. Serpieri’s name would remain basically connected to the Laurium mines in the

public eye and the business activities of Giovanni Serpieri were continued by his son

Ferdinand (Grange 1994, I 453).

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

118

Like Serpieri, Karl (or Charles) Kloebe established himself in Greece at some point in the

mid 19th century and specifically in Syros where he was involved in the trade in emery

mined in the neighbouring island of Naxos (Mackroth 1930, 68). He also served as Consul

for a number of foreign powers including Prussia, Norway and Sweden (Almanach 1857,

2219-2220). Kloebe invested in five JSC start-ups in the 1860s and 1870s, four of which

were maritime insurance companies while the fifth was a printing and typographical

business.

Figure 1. Multiple Investments of the major seven shareholders

Giovanni B. Serpieri

Agkira

(1869)

Credit Bank for pledges

(1872)

Metallurgy of Lavrio

(1873)

Kea

(1873)

Athens - Peireus -
Peloponesse Railways

(1882)

Pirgos - Katakolo Railways

(1883)

Dardeza

(1894)

Mining Co., Vani

(1908)

Karl Kloebe

Omonoia

(1861)

Greek Insurance Co,
Mesogeios

(1865)

Elpis

(1866)

Poseidon

(1866)

Ekatoheir

(1871)

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

119

Fels & Co

Amalia

(1856)

Greek Fire and
Insurance, Foinix

(1857)

Hellenic Vinification

(1858)

Miaoulis

(1859)

Argonautis Bank

(1860)

Theodor Hamburger

Argonautis Bank

(1860)

Agkira

(1862)

Emile Erlanger & Co

Greek Railway Co.

(1902)

Company of Production
and Trading of Raisin

(1905)

Francois Theophile
Feraldi

Credit Bank for

pledges

(1872)

Births and maintenance
of theaters in Athens

(1872)

Kea

(1873)

Andreas Syngros

Commercial and Credit
Bank

(1872)

Birth and maintenance of
theaters in Athens (1872)

General Credit Bank of
Greece

(1873)

Real Estate Credit Bank

(1873)

Metallurgy of Lavrio

(1873)

The Bank of
Constandinople

(1881)

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

120

Fels & Co is another important example of FDI in mid-19
th

century especially because of this

firm’s direct links to larger and continental-wide concerns. Two separate sources link Fels &

Co with the firm of German-English merchant house of Cornelius Souchay (Roth 2001, 59)

and Genoese firm of F. Gruber & Co (Mackroth 1930, 68-69) both of which were involved

in the trade in English-made cotton textiles. Martin Fels initially founded his firm in Corfu in

1845 as a branch of Gruber but subsequently established it as Fels & Co. The firm in turn

opened a branch in Patras. It dealt not only in manufactured goods but was also heavily

involved in trading in the basic commodities of Ionian and adjacent Greek territory, that is

olive oil and currants. Given Fels & Co’s concentration in the import/export sector it should

not be surprising that of the five JSC start-ups in which it invested four were involved in

maritime loans and insurance and only in local wine production.

Theodor Hamburger was directly related to Fels & Co being the director of its branch in

Patras and responsible for the firm’s trade in the main export commodity of this port, the

Corinthian raisin or currant. The Patras branch was founded in 1855 and although initially

led by the Swiss merchant Hamburger he together with others (and in his later years with his

sons) would go on to establish other businesses within the same export trade as well as the

related wine production sector. Hamburger invested in two JSC start-ups, both of which were

involved in the maritime insurance business.

Although the links between the family of the Frankfurt banker Raphael Erlanger date from at

least the 1860s (Schönhärl 2013, 121) it was only in the early twentieth century (Grunwald

1977, 207) that the family firm Emile Erlanger & Co invested heavily in Greece. It is at this

time Erlanger appears as a shareholder in two JSC start-ups. So we thus find Erlanger

investing together with Baron George de Reuter and the French civil engineering firm

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

121

Société de construction des Batignolles (Park-Barjot 2005, 355-356) in the Elliniki Etaria

Sidirodromon or Hellenic Railways Company, a JSC created to construct a railway line

linking Piraeus to the Turkish border. Furthermore we find Erlanger investing in another JSC

directly related to Greece’s most important export commodity, the currant. The JSC

Pronomouchios Etairia pros prostasian tis paragogis kai tou emporiou tis stafidos or

Privileged Company for the protection of the production and trade in currants was

established, as its name suggests, for the protection of the currant trade and this investment

Erlanger shared with a number of other important players such as the ‘rising star’ (Schönhärl

2013, 121) of domestic Greek banking the Bank of Athens and the French Banque de l’Union

Parisienne.

The case of French engineer, banker and shipping entrepreneur François Théophile Feraldi is

like that Giovanni Serpieri of particular interest because it further illustrates the example of a

foreign investor who establishes himself in Greece. Feraldi appears to have arrived in Greece

during the ill-fated Presidency of Count Ioannis Kapodistrias in the late 1820s. Like Martin

Fels and Carl Kloebe he was the representative of a number of foreign powers, namely

Sardinia and the Saxony (Strong 1842, 131), but more importantly he was able to secure very

early in the life of the young Greek state (1834) a concession (Government Gazette Greece

1834, No 21) for a number of steam ship routes connecting Greek ports to Malta, Livorno,

Trieste, Canea and Marseilles. It is not clear how long this concession lasted but by 1853 he

was still residing in Greece and was acting as the representative of the French steam ship

company Messageries Maritimes. He is now mostly remembered for his visionary plans

(Papanikolaou-Kristensen 1995, 58) to construct a railway connection between Athens and

Piraeus and to build a large central market in Athens. This sense of civic duty is perhaps

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

122

present in his choice to invest in a JSC whose principle aim was to build a public theatre in

Athens. His investment in two other JSCs reflect the general diversified investment patterns

of foreigners in Greece, one company involved in banking and another in mining.

Andreas Syngros is one of the major figures of 19
th

century Greek and specifically Chiot

merchant bankers of Constantinople (Syngros 1998; Pepelasis-Minoglou 2002). Having been

born into modestly well-off family he was able to rise quickly to become of the major Greek

financiers of the Galata district of Constantinople having made a considerable fortune in

trading in Ottoman public debt (Dertlis 1989, 15-17). He owned a controlling interest in the

Bank of Constantinople but as the market Ottoman public debt market began to change in the

late 1860s he moved to Greece and his investments in six JSCs (four of which were Banks)

reflected perhaps a desire to take a significant share of the domestic Greek banking sector.

The other JSCs were a mining corporation and a public benefit company.

In a nutshell, major international shareholders were a mixed lot, but the common/combined

outcome of their investment strategies was the enhancement of the market economy and the

expansion of export commodities, shipping and finance.

Linking international investment in JSC start-ups and Sovereign borrowing

The process of international investment in JSCs did not operate in a vacuum. As described in

Section two above there was a heavy dependence of the Greek state on foreign borrowing

and apparently as we observe there was an absence of firm boundaries between this sphere

and international presence in the nascent corporate sector:

Firstly, from our analysis of the database we observe that some key players were present in

both spheres. The banker Andreas Syngros, and six international banks involved in setting up

syndicates for issuing foreign loans for the Greek government in the large financial centres

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

123

of the epoch were also founding shareholders in JSC/IS start-ups. Notably, these banks were:

Emile Erlanger & Co., Hambro, Comptoir d’Escompte De Paris, Banque de l’Union

Parisienne, the Ionian Bank, and the headquarters of the Banque de Constantinople (in

which Syngros was coincidentally a stakeholder) (Pepelasis Minoglou 2002a). Syngros and

these banks seemed to have a preference for investing in large JSCs which had a public

benefit character - such as the Etaireia Diaheiriseos ton Monopolion, the Company for the

Management of the Monopolies- or in railways banking, mining and industry.

Secondly, some of the JSC/IS banks, after their start-up phase would participate in the

issuing of a tranche of the foreign loans raised for the Greek government. In this small latter

category were the: National Bank of Greece (which as already mentioned was founded in

1841); The Geniki Pistotiki Trapeza Ellados General Credit Bank of Greece and the Trapeza

Viomihanikis Pisteos Bank of Industrial Credit of Greece, both of which were established in

1873.

Thirdly, a further interlinkage between the two spheres was that a few JSC/IS start-ups, once

they were established were beneficiaries of funds provided to them through sovereign

borrowing on the international capital market an important case in point being railways

(Papayiannakis 1982).

Conclusion: some further implications of our research

In conclusion our main findings are:

-The involvement of international investors in the Greek corporate sector began in 1841,

became more intense two decades later (at a time of financial embargo for the state on the

international capital market) and it reached its maximum level in the 1910s (in spite of the

collapse of the international financial system with the outbreak of WWI).

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

124

-International shareholding was dispersed among a fairly large number of firms most of

which were large and in sectors which were capital/knowledge intensive and strenngthened

Greece’s ties to the international market.

-International shareholding in the nascent corporate sector was a mosaic- involving actors

with varying characteristics and interconnections among themselves and the international

economy. In addition there was some overlap between shareholding in the nascent corporate

sector and the foreign borrowing of the Greek state. The deciphering of the possible

interactions, collaborations, possible antagonisms amongst this larger whole is a challenge

for future researchers.

-The Greek mercantile diaspora acted as a unifying cultural force within the body of

international shareholders enhancing the exchange of information, ties and joint ventures

between foreigners and local Greeks.

This article we believe has wider implications for the historical study of the investment

strategy of international business in receiving (host) countries and in particular those that

have large diasporas such as Israel, Lebanon and China. Finally, we would like to argue that

this case study is also of wider interest to business scholars today given the increasing

fluidity and deconstruction of hierarchies in the global economy and the rise in cultural

interactions.

Primary Source: Selected issues of the Φύλλον Εφημερίδος της Κυβερνήσεως, Greek

Government Gazette 1833-1920.

References

Agriantonis, Christina. 1986. The Beginnings of Industrialisation in Greece During the 19th Century.

Athens: Historical Archive of the Commercial Bank of Greece (In Greek).

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

125

Agriantonis, Christina, and Maria-Christina Chatziioannou. 1995. The Silkmill of Athens. Athens:

National Research Foundation (In Greek).

Almanach. 1857. Annuaire-Almanach du Commerce, de l’Industrie, de la Magistrature et de

l’Administration. Paris: Firmin-Didot Frères.

Angelopoulos, Angelos Th. 1928. Sociétés Anonymes in Greece. Athens: Greek Society of Scientific

Studies (In Greek).

Angelopoulou, Enta. 2003. “The creation of joint stock companies, 1910-1922.” MSc diss.,

University of Economics and Business (In Greek).

Amatori, Franco, and Andrea Colli. 2011. Business History Complexities and Comparisons.

Abingdon: Routledge.

Chang, Ha-Joon. 2004. “Regulation of Foreign Investment in Historical Perspective.” In

Understanding FDI-Assisted Economic Development, edited by Rajneesh Narula, and Sanjaya

Lall, 241-269. Abingdon: Routledge.

Chatziioannou, Maria-Christina. 2003. Family strategy and commercial antagonism. Athens: Cultural

Foundation of the National Bank of Greece (In Greek).

Chatziioannou, Maria-Christina 2013. The Original Sin Debt. The Loans of Greek Independence.

Athens: Gutenberg (In Greek).

Dertilis, Giorgos. 1989. The Banking Affair (1871-1873). Athens: Cultural Foundation of the

National Bank of Greece (In Greek).

Dertilis, Giorgos. 2009. History of the Greek State 1830-1920. Athens: Estia (In Greek).

Frangiadhis, Alexis 2007. The Greek Economy 19th–20th Century. Athens: Alexandreia. (In Greek).

Foreman-Peck, James, and Ioanna Sapfo Pepelasis. 2013. “Entrepreneurs and Businessmen in Greece

during the Long Nineteenth Century.” In Entrepreneurship and Growth: An International

Historical Perspective, edited by Gabriel Tortella, and Gloria Quiroga, 49-68. London:

Palgrave.

Godley, Andrew. 2006. “Migration of Entrepreneurs.” In The Oxford Handbook of Entrepreneurship,

edited by Mark Casson Bernard Yeung, Anuradha Basu, and Nigel Wadeson, 601-610. Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

Grange, Daniel J. 1994. L’Italie et la Méditerranée (1896-1911) Les fondements d’une politique

étrangère. Rome: Ecole Française de Rome. 2v.

Grunwald, Kurt. 1977. “Three chapters of German-Jewish banking history.” Leo Baeck Institute

Yearbook 22 (1): 191-208.

Harlaftis, Gelina. 1996. A history of Greek-owned Shipping. The Making of an International Tramp

Fleet, 1830 to the present day. London: Routledge.

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

126

Jones, Geoffrey. 2007. “Globalization.” In The Oxford Handbook of Business History, edited by

Geoffrey Jones and Jonathan Zeitlin, 141-168. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Karavas, Konstantinos. 1930. Theoretical and Practical Textbook of Sociétés Anonymes. Athens: n.p.

(In Greek).

Kostis, Kostas, and Socrates Petmezas. 2006. The Economic Development of Greece in the

Nineteenth Century. Athens: Alpha Bank (In Greek).

Kostis, Kostas, and Vasias Tsokopoulos. 1988. Banks in Greece 1898-1928. Athens: Papazisis (In

Greek).

Langlois, Richard N. 2007. The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism Schumpeter, Chandler and the

New Economy. Abingdon: Routledge.

Lazaretou, Sofia. 2013. From Default to Recession. The International Financial Supervision of 1898

in Greece. Athens: Gutenberg (In Greek).

Mackroth, Siegfried. 1930. Das Deutschtum in Griechenland. Stuttgart: Ausland-und-Heimat Verlag

Melios, Nikolaos. 1987. Copais, 19th and 20th Century. Athens: Unpublished typescript. (In Greek).

Micklethwait, John, and Adrian Wooldridge. 2003. The Company. A short history of a revolutionary

idea. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Miravitlles, Paloma, and Yingying Zhang. 2016. “Six Decades of Business Research: Where Next?”

Journal of Evolutionary Studies in Business 1 (1): 63-94.

Neal, Larry, and Jeffrey G. Williamson. 2015. Cambridge History of Capitalism Volume II The

Spread of Capitalism: From 1848 to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Noel-Baker, Barbro. 2000. An isle of Greece - The Noels in Euboea. Limni Evia: Denise-Harvey.

Park-Barjot, Rang-Ri. 2005. La société de construction des Batignolles: Des origines à la première

guerre mondiale, Paris: Presses de l’ Université Paris-Sorbonne.

Pandelakis, Nikos. 1991. Electrification in Greece, from private initiative to state monopoly 1889-

1956. Athens: Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece (In Greek).

Pandelakis, Nikos. 1995. Public Loans. Athens: Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece

(In Greek).

Papanikolaou-Kristensen, Aristea. 1995. “The suburb of Metaxourgeion in Athens: from the

commercial centre to the factory.” In The Athens Silkmill, edited by Christina Agriantonis, and

Maria-Christina Chatziioannou, 44-82. Athens: National Research Foundation (In Greek).

Papayiannakis, Lefteris. 1982. The Greek Railways (1882‒1910): Geopolitical, Economic and Social

Dimensions. Athens: Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece (In Greek).

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

127

Papayiannopoulou, Eva. 1989. The Corinth Canal: Technical Feat and Economic Challenge. Athens:

Cultural and Technological Foundation of the Greek Bank of Industrial Development (EΤΒΑ)

(In Greek).

Pepelasis Minoglou, Ioanna. 1995. “Political Factors Shaping the Role of Foreign Finance: The Case

of Greece (1832-1932).” In The New Institutional Economics and Third World Development,

edited by John Harriss, Janet Hunter, and Colin M Lewis, 250-264. Abingdon: Routledge.

Pepelasis Minoglou, Ioanna. 2002. “Ethnic Minority Groups in International Banking: Greek Bankers

of Constantinople and Ottoman State Finances c. 1840-1881.” Financial History Review, 9

(2):125-146.

Pepelasis Minoglou, Ioanna. 2002a. “Between Informal Networks and Formal Contracts:

International Investment in Greece during the 1920s.” Business History 44 (2): 40-64.

Pepelasis Minoglou, Ioanna. 2010. “Constructing ‘Big’ Business in a Small latecomer Country: Joint

Stock Company founders in Greec, 1830-1909.” In EU Funded Basic Research at the Athens

University of Economics and Business, Athens: Athens University of Economics and Business.

Pepelasis, Ioanna Sapfo. 2010a. “Entrepreneurial Typologies in a Young Nation State: Evidence from

the founding charters of Greek Société Anonymes, 1830-1909.” In The Historical

Determinants of Entrepreneurship, edited by Jose L. García Ruiz, and Pier Angelo Toninelli,

33-47. London: Pickering and Chatto.

Pepelasis, Ioanna Sapfo. 2011. “Joint stock company births in Greece (1830-1909): Demography and

rising expectations.” Working Paper Series 06-2011, Athens University Economics and

Business Department of Economics. http://www.econ.aueb.gr/uploadfiles/811Pepelasis.

Pepelasis, Ioanna Sapfo, and Konstantinos Aivalis. 2014. “Joint stock company Births in Turbulent

Times: Greece, 1909-1929.” Working Paper Series 5-2014, Athens University Economics and

Business Department of Economics. http://www.econ.aueb.gr/uploadfiles/AllDP052014.pdf.

Pepelasis, Ioanna Sapfo, and Aimilia Protogerou. 2016. “A break with the past? The shift from

inward looking to internationally competitive global firms.” Paper presented at the Jean

Monnet Seminar of the Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and

Business, Athens, Greece, April 13.

Pepelasis, Ioanna Sapfo, and Dimitrios Varvaritis. 2016. “Jewish enterprising in the Greek Nation

State: A New Perspective. The evidence from joint stock company start-ups 1830-1929.” In

Jewish communities between East and West 15
th
-20

th
centuries: Economy, Society, Politics,

Culture, edited by Anna Mahera and Leda Papastefanaki. Ioannina: Isnafi (Forthcoming).

Roth, Günther. 2001. Max Webers deutsch-englische Familiengeschicte 1800-1950. Tübingen, Mohr

Siebeck.

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB

Volume 2, Number 1, 100-128, July-December 2016 doi.org/10.1344/JESB2016.2.j014

Online ISSN: 2385-7137 COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB Creative Commons License 4.0

128

Schönhärl, Korinna. 2013. “Fighting the financial crisis in Greece: the privileged company to protect

production and trade in currants as international bank cooperation.” The Historical Review/La

Révue Historique 10: 107-134.

Stephanides, Demosthenes. 1930. The inflow of Foreign Capital and its economic and political

consequences. Thessaloniki: University of Thessaloniki (In Greek).

Strong, Frederick. 1842. Greece as a Kingdom. London: Longman.

Syngros, Andreas. 1998. Memoirs. Edited by Alkis Angelou, and Maria-Christina Chatziioannou.

Athens: Estia (In Greek). 3v.

Tsotsoros, Stathis N. 1994. The Formation of Industrial Capital in Greece (1898‒1939). Athens:

Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece (In Greek). 2v.

Vikelas, Dimitrios. 1997. My life. In Collected Works, edited by Alkis Angelou, Vol. 2. Athens:

Association for the Dissemination of useful Books. 8v.

Yiannitsis, Anastasios. 1977. “Foreign direct investments in Greece and the shaping of the modern

Greek economy (1830-1939).” Greek Review of Social Research 30: 234-25 (In Greek).

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/JESB
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/