When his son Alexander was killed in a plane crash in 1973, Aristotle seemed to lose his lust for the pursuit of profit. "I'm not happy. It's not always millions that resolve what a man needs," he told an associate who congratulated him on the continuing success of his tanker fleet. He died two years later, leaving his vast estate to be divided between his daughter Christina and The Onassis Foundation, which promotes charity, art, and development in Greece.
The fortune afforded Christina a lavish lifestyle, with homes in Athens, Paris, Acapulco and New York along with the island of Skorpios and her father's huge art collection. The money did not bring her happiness, however, and she died alone and in despair in 1988. And so the legacy was passed to her daughter Athina.
Her father, Thierry, spent a decade fighting to wrest control of the money from the Greek businessmen Christina left in charge. He persuaded the trustees to allow him $13 million a year to raise little Athina, along with an annual allowance of $1.4 million to top off his $20-million divorce settlement.
"He always wants more," complained the chief trustee Stelios Papadimitrou of Thierry. "The man has certain ambitions, that is to handle the inheritance… but there is a will we operate within, and that is Christina's." "I want to ensure that at least some of the Onassis fortune is conserved," countered Thierry, accusing the trustees of mismanagement. The rows came to an end in 1999 when a Swiss court transferred control to KPMG of Lausanne, cutting both Thierry and the managers out of the loop. As of January 28, Athina herself takes unilateral control, and the financial world and society at large will be watching closely to see what choices she makes. Some reports suggest she would rather be free of the money, which she blames for her mother's unhappiness.
"If I burn the money there will be no problem," she once told her stepmother. "No money, no problem."She has expressed an interest in transferring the bulk of the fortune to good causes, and is known to have consulted the advisers that helped Bill Gates channel his billions into charities. For the moment, however, nothing is certain.
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