5:05 AM Tue 3 Nov 2009 GMT
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'Elena Ambrosiadou - ’I work 16 hours a day’'
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In March the world's biggest, riskiest, fastest, most technologically advanced, single-hulled sailing mega yacht in the world, the Maltese Falcon, was listed for sale.
Silicon Valley magnate Tom Perkins had only had it built two years before.
Rumours abounded, everything from the story that it had been taken off the market to the tale that it had been sold to a mystery buyer. By September it was pretty clear that it had been sold, but still no word of the buyer. Finally the story came out, that the new owner was none other than one of the UK's most successful female entrepreneurs.
But Hedge-fund manager Elena Ambrosiadou says she won't have time to sail the boat. "I work 16 hours a day, seven days a week. I doubt if I'll be spending much time on her," she told the Times. Otherwise, the yacht can be chartered for ?375,000 a week. "This is an enterprise," she said.
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Maltese Falcon - Perini Navi Cup 2009 - Carlo Borlenghi ©
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Ambrosiadou, who grew up in Thessaloniki, in Greece, founded Ikos (which means "home" in her native language) in 1992, "when the hedge-fund industry was still in its maverick adolescence", she told reporters. The fund, which began as a foreign exchange trading account with little more than ?60,000, was conceived as a money-spinning sideline to her business career. A chemical engineer by training, she achieved early success at BP, becoming its youngest-ever senior international executive at 27. Her fortune is now estimated at ?200million
Ambrosiadou, now 51, who divides her time between Cyprus, Greece and London, explained how, when she will not have time to use the yacht, she came to buy it: "I chartered her with some friends last year and then last April I crossed the Atlantic with Tom, which took eight days. I fell in love with her - everyone falls in love with her sleek lines and signature masts." It is rumoured that she purchased the yacht for a mere ?60million.
The Maltese Falcon has six guest cabins, eight crew cabins, a gym and a sculpture of a vintage Bugatti racing car. For fun, it carries two 32ft Pascoe RIB tenders (with water skis), four Laser sailing boats, and a 14ft Castoldi tender. The yacht also had a mini-submarine, but it is thought that Perkins plans to keep this.
by Sail-World roundup
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