Monaco: The Monarch & the Magnate

Someone should have told His Serene Highness Prince Rainier about Greeks bearing gifts. Twelve years ago, he welcomed Aristotle Socrates Onassis to Monaco. Now he regrets it.

Onassis did not come emptyhanded. Rainier was originally delighted to see him, because the Greek shipping magnate invested some $1,500,000 in 52% of the stock of the Société des Bains de Mer, an Edwardian sprawl of properties that includes the casino, the yacht club, the 60-year-old Hótel de Paris and about one-third of Monaco’s 375 acres. Bien, thought Rainier, Ari will also bring in his rich friends, make the roulette wheels spin as they used to before the war—and use the S.B.M.’s reserves to build some nice sandy beaches, which Monaco badly needs in the bikini era. Unfortunately, Onassis disapproves of gambling, prefers to sunbathe on his 325-ft. yacht and thinks the S.B.M.’s seaside locations would be ideal for high-rise co-op apartments.

“I was taken for a sucker!” stormed Rainier to a reporter in June. So was Onassis, in one sense, for the Prince enjoys a royal veto over S.B.M. decisions, and the tycoon’s only recourse was to protest bitterly to Monaco’s 18-man Parliament. He accused Rainier of cutting casino betting by 60% when he outlawed pigeon shooting several years ago (because Princess Grace vowed she couldn’t bear the sight of dying birds littering the promenades). Onassis is willing to sell out, but his price is the current one of $17 a share, up from $4 in 1960. Since the company’s profits are actually declining (Monaco’s tourists being increasingly of the one-day, white-chip variety), some Riviera brokers wonder whether the Onassis interest in the stock isn’t the main reason why the price stays up.

Rainier could scarcely afford to buy Onassis out, and he shuns expropriation; as unbefitting the genteel nature of his establishment. Nonetheless, at the company’s annual meeting last week, a Swiss lawyer known to be close to the palace launched an attack that suggested a Royal Solution. Onassis’ control of such a large block of stock, argued the lawyer, is illegal under the company’s charter, which limits individual shareholders to 10,000 apiece. Onassis nominally complies with this by holding most of his stock in the names of 48 Panamanian shipping companies, but Rainier may be able to find a judge who agrees that Ari should be forced by law to sell his shares or give up his voting rights. Then, presumably, the way would be clear for Rainier to set about shaping his princely domain into another St. Tropez—or, who knows, perhaps another Nice.