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Once Powerful Greek Businessman Arrested for Unpaid Taxes & Insturance Contributions
Babis Vovos, constructor, once one of the most powerful businessmen in Greece, was arrested on Monday for unpaid taxes. According to Greek media, Vovos owes 1,010,000 million euro in outstanding contributions to national insurance fund IKA, taxes and other liabilities. According to news portal zougla.gr, Vovos failed among others to pay taxes of 220,000 euro for providing services.
Babis Vovos, 79, is known in Greece as the constructor who raised several cubic glass buildings and malls preferably in the north suburbs of Athens. Not without a reason, the Maroussi area is called the Vovos glass suburb.
The economic crisis started for Vovos after 2008 and reached the peak in 2012. Unpaid employees took legal measures and enforced the auction of part of his properties, with some banks plan to to the same.
The collapse of glass towers
Some years ago, he was the “King of Kifissia Avenue” and his name was featured on top of glass skyscrapers of Maroussi. Today Babis Vovos, submerged in debt, sees his kingdom to collapse, risking losing even his own home. The house is one of the oldest and most beautiful buildings in Palaio Psychico suburb, built on a plot of approximately 1.5 acre. Its value reaches 8 million, while the bank has already mortgaged and is ready to seize it and then take it off at auction.
A few years ago Babis Vovos construction company employed 340 people. Today there are only 40. A few years ago it was a healthy company. Today it owes the banks € 700 million and seeks protection from creditors. A few weeks ago he applied for the protection of Article 99 of the Bankruptcy Code. Apart from the field of real estate and properties, the holding had also extended its business to other fields such as the franchise of «Costa Coffee», that suspended its operation last week. Owner of CC was the son of Vovos, Aris. (protothema)
Babis Vovos was the eight child of a poor family who managed to build an empire in the 1980′s.
According to the website of the company, from 1974 to date, Babis Vovos International Construction (BVIC) has built over 30 business centres in Athens with a total area exceeding 500 thousand square metres. Currently, the company owns or manages property with a total area of 200 thousand square metres worth over 1.2 billion euro.
In October this year, Babis Vovos applied for the protection of Article 99 of the Bankruptcy Code. The results from 2011 show that the company ended the year with 80.3 million euro loss and the amount of the net bank liabilities of the corporation is around 730 million euro.
Babis Vovos’ name is associated in Greece with intrusive business buildings of questionable aesthetics. They can be found mainly along the Kifissias thoroughfare. In the late 1990 and the beginning of the new century, they began to spring up like mushrooms one after another along one of the major avenues that connects the northern suburbs of Athens with the city centre. The distinctive features of the buildings of Babis Vovos are cubic shapes, glass facades and the constant sign with his name on top of the building.
The buildings constructed by Vovos house companies and organizations like Vodafone, Coca Cola, Cosmote, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, Media Markt, Village Roadshow, Siemens, Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM), the ministry of urban development and public procurement management and a central administration.
One of the most controversial deals of Babis Vovos, which caused a scandal in Greece but without real consequences for the businessman, was the donation of the building, which houses the municipality of Maroussi. More than ten years ago, the businessman built the new city hall and the town planning service of the municipality for free. (full story GreekReporter)
According too latest media reports, Vovos appeared before the prosecutor on Wednesday and he is facing felony offenses. He is currently in custody in the Headquarters of Greek police. The hearing for Article 99 that was scheduled for today has been postponed.
2012-11-28 08:21:02
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