The Ralli Brothers – Business of Five

Being one of the worlds most famous Greek merchant family of the Victorian era, the Rally Brothers was a company of five brothers.

Zannis “John” (1785 – 1859), Augustus (1792 – 1878), Pandia “Zeus” (1793 – 1865), Toumazis (1799 – 1858) and Eustratios (1800 – 1884) were the offsprings of a wealthy merchant family from Chios, Greece and sons of Stephanos Ralli (1755 – 1827), who had settled his business in Marseille, France. Due to the Napoleonic wars Stephanos decided to send his eldest son John to London, to exploit new markets and business opportunites. After he established his business in the metropolis, John first traded oriental silk and Russian grain for British textiles, which was quite a lucrative deal at the time. He also fetched his brothers over to the island to help him and by that incorporated the Ralli Brothers. The four siblings replicated their older brother's example and went into different markets: Eustratios worked on textile export from Manchester, Toumazis took care of raw materials and grain from Odessa and Constantinople. Pandia was responsible for the Baltic Exchange and finally Augustus in charge of the Miditerranean operations from Marseille.

The move of the family to the United Kingdom proofed to have been a lucky one, since Greece and especially Chios lived through troubled times due to the war with the Ottoman Empire and The Massacre of Chios. All in all the business of the Ralli Brothers was characterized by a series of lucky guesses and bold strategic moves. The corporation quickly expanded into the new markets after wars, political events and the like, dealing with e.g. corn, cotton, silk, opium and fruit. The brothers also extended their trading operations across the Mediterranean, Syria and Russia to cities such as St. Petersburg, Taganrog, Tabriz, Alexandria and Smyrna, while their company had more than 40.000 employees. Yet the control remained in the hands of the family members.

In 1831 Pandia married Marietta Scaramanga (1810 – 1860), the daughter of the wealthy merchant from Chios with influence in Russia, while in 1851 the Ralli Brothers started operations in India with having offices in Calcutta and Bombay. These operations were mainly based on the trade with goods such as jute, shellac, teelseed, turmeric, ginger, rice, saltpetre and borax, encompassing a total amount of 4.000 clerks and 15 warehousemen / dockers. Other markets outside of Europe were claimed in New York and New Orleans due to the brothers cousin Alexander Vlasto, which proofed viable especially because of the arising Crimean War.

This, however, was the all-time high of the business, which slowly fell apart after the death of Pandia in 1865. His nephew Stephen Augustus Ralli (1829 – 1902) delivered the Russian business to the family of Pandia's wife, and re-constituted the Ralli Brothers on the British, American and Indian operations. After his death in 1902, his nephew Sir Lucas Ralli Bt. (1846 – 1931) continued with the families business strategies, which were successful due to the American and Indian operations, dealing with both textiles after the American Civil War and, after 1882, with opium. The Ralli Brothers also had an exclusive contract with the British War Department during the First World War for jute sandbags. But because of the Great Depression in 1929 the company was forced to abandon the Indian trading market with the Argenti, another Greek family, stepping in to act as their agents.

15 years after the Second World War, in 1960, Sir Isaac Wolfson and Harry Recanati of the at the time powerful “Great Univeral Stores” and the Israel Discount Bank approached the Company President Jack Vlasto. He refused their offer of taking over all of the shares on the stockmarkets of the Ralli Brothers with a price between two and three times the shares current value. Yet the company was a merchant bank and therefore obliged to present the deal to the shareholders, who one year later voted to accept the deal. As a result, Sir Isaac Wolfson was in controle over the family business for a price of 5.500.000 Pounds. In course of time, similar things happened to all the other parts of the business, which were either taken over, closed or reshaped.

As symbols of successful Greek merchants, the heritage of the Ralli Brothers was the inspiration of their countrymen to follow their example of fair dealing. Especially Pandia forced his standards on the men and his fellow Greek émigrés he did business with, which subsequently earned him the nickname “Zeus”.