John Christodoulou

Yiannakis Theophani "John" Christodoulou (born May 1965) is a Monaco-based British billionaire property developer, the owner of Yianis Group, a privately owned company with a portfolio of residential, hotel, retail and leisure properties in the UK and Europe.

Christodoulou was born in May 1965, in Nicosia, Cyprus. He came to London as a boy in 1974, as his family fled the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.

He started with a studio flat, and now owns extensive property in the London Docklands through his Yianis Group.

Christodoulou owns 100% of Yianis Group, which owns the London hotels Marriott West India Quay and the Canary Riverside Plaza (formerly Four Seasons Canary Wharf). He owns Wool House in London.

As of April 2019, his net worth is £1.6 billion, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.

The value of Christodoulou's property holdings increased by 25% in the 12 months to April 2019 to £1.5 billion, due to a buoyant London rental market.

Christodoulou lives in Monaco and has three children. He has a $50 million 74m yacht, Zeus, previously owned by Aidan Barclay.

Yianis Christodoulou Foundation

He founded the Yianis Christodoulou Foundation, which seeks to support and empower underservedchildren and their families in the UK and abroad.

Christodoulou has given £1 million to his Foundation.

To raise money for his Foundation, Christodoulou has hosted events such as the Star Ball in 2017 at the Hilton Hotel Manchester where over £1.5 million was raised.

The Foundation had a Christmas Card – Helping Children Pancyprian Primary School Competition,‘Christmas Card – Helping Children’, for children to design a Christmas card.There were three prizes €10,000, €5,000 and €2,000. The prize money was used for the implementation of projects in the three schools (e.g. infrastructure, renovation, purchase of equipment).

Christodoulou was awarded IN Business Magazine's Foreign-based Cypriot Entrepreneur of the Year 2013.

Christodoulou is the president of the Monaco and Cyprus Jubilee Sailing Trust.

Christodoulou's business practices have attracted considerable media attention. The Times notes that "his company has been challenged by residents of a luxury development of more than 300 flats who complained they were being charged sky-high service charges and unreasonably high sums for repairs." This is a reference to Canary Riverside, where the Christodoulou-appointed Marathon Estates was removed from controlling the site by the property tribunal in October 2016. It found that Marathon Estates "has been unable to produce accurate financial information on time, including budgets and accounts, has not engaged with leaseholders and has a muddled hierarchy of command."

Allegations of chronic mismanagement of 1 West India Quay have emerged in a Sunday Times feature on the leasehold property scandal. Leaseholders there have taken legal action against Christodoulou over expensive energy bills, raising concerns that they have been subsidising his commercial interest on the site. In May 2014, they won the right to form a Recognised Tenants Association, despite Christodoulou having hired a QC and spent £74,000 in trying to block their efforts.

Christodoulou has also been named in parliament, with former MP for Poplar and Limehouse Jim Fitzpatrick claiming that the litigation and threats faced by the court-appointed manager at Canary Riverside are "little short of harassment". A former secretary of the 1 West India Quay residents' association has been subjected to a defamation threat by Christodoulou's lawyers, as have 100 leaseholders at neighbouring Canary Riverside. In July 2018, his lawyers unsuccessfully sought to prevent the then local MP, Jim Fitzpatrick, from raising the case of Canary Riverside in parliament. It had been claimed that Fitzpatrick's intervention could breach sub judice rules.