Sokratis Kokkalis

Sokratis Kokkalis ( Greek Σωκράτης Κόκκαλης , born May 27, 1939 in Athens ) is a Greek entrepreneur .

He is the founder, president and major shareholder of the telecommunications company Intracom and president of the Kokkalis Foundation. His wife is Elena Farmakis.

Life

Kokkalis was born in Athens in 1939 as the son of the physician Petros Kokkalis . His father was a communist and a member of the communist rebels in the Greek civil war from 1945 to 1949. After the defeat of the communists, his family left Greece and lived in Romania for a short time before settling in the GDR . There his father Petros Kokkalis had a position as a university professor and was also Walter Ulbricht's personal physician .

Sokratis Kokkalis studied physics in Moscow and Berlin . In 1962 he finished his studies at the Berlin Humboldt University . His special fields of science were electronic technology and telecommunications . Shortly thereafter, in 1963, he began his entrepreneurial activities and returned to Athens in 1965, where he settled.

Intracom , a company he founded, played an important role in technology transfer to countries in the former Eastern Bloc . In 1999 he spun off the betting systems division from Intracom and founded the company Intralot .

Kokkalis is fluent in Greek, German, English and Russian.

Accusation of Stasi activity

Kokkalis is also said to have worked as an agent for the Stasi . The discussions in Greece were nevertheless limited, as he had already been viewed at the time these allegations became known and they related to a long time ago.

Commitment to Olympiakos

In 1991 Kokkalis acquired the Olympiacos basketball team . Under his leadership, the team achieved numerous national and international successes (including winning the Europa League in 1997). In 1993 he also acquired a majority stake in Olympiakos' football division. In 2008 he sold the basketball team to Giorgos and Panagiotis Angelopoulos and in 2010 also sold the majority of the shares in the soccer team.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DIE WELT, February 25, 2002
2. ↑ Capital.de, September 18, 2008 ( Memento of the original from April 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.