One of the most historical Maritime families in the field of Greek merchant marine is the Vallianatos family. The roots of the maritime activities of the family go back at the beginning of the 19th century, while the whole family was engaged in shipping two centuries ago. The founder Andreas Vallianatos (1794-1899) created a fleet of sailing boats which was trading at the area of the Ionian Islands in Greece based however in Braila Romania. His sons Gerasimos Vallianatos (1822-1894) and Dionisios Vallianatos (1820-1890) followed the maritime career of their father. Gerasimos, successfully traded with his own vessel “Agios Nikolaos” among Greece, Malta, Trieste and the other Mediterranean ports, and Dionisios engaged mostly in the Ionian Islands in Greece while his son Panagis became a distinctive shipowner at the area of the South Danube. The descendants of Gerasimos, Dimitris Vallianatos (1861-1943) and his son Lucas Vallianatos (1885-1968) continued the family maritime tradition. Stamatoula Vallianatos daughter of Lucas married Andreas Zissimatos who later became the partner of her father Lucas at the family maritime business.
As from the end of the 1920’s long lasting relationships with Major Oil companies were created such as BP Hellas, Shell Hellas, Mobil and Standard oil, which mostly concerned the transportation of oil to the Greek and the nearby Mediterranean maritime markets.
As all his ancestors, Panagis Zissimatos son of Andreas and Stamatoula Vallianatos, was born in the Greek island of Cephalonia in 1948. Following also the family tradition he went to sea at the very young age of 14 years old, and by the age of 18 he had already 18 months of sea service. He graduated from the Oinousses maritime Academy, the most distinctive maritime college in Greece and later he obtained the master license, sailing with the most types of vessels.
Being a member of a distinctive Greek maritime family, Cpt. Zissimatos, had several years of sea service as a master of several sea going vessels under the Greek and foreign flags, and thus obtained vast knowledge and personal experience at the potentials and the limitations of the different types of vessels and the maritime field in general. By using this knowledge and experience Cpt. Zissimatos took advantage of the market cycles and of the maritime industry in order to expand his activities during the forthcoming years.
At the end of the 1970’s the private fleet consisted of 2 small tankers transporting petroleum products among the Greek islands and generally in Mediterranean. Cpt. Zissimatos entered at that time the family business where he was distinguished for his knowledge and his business perceptiveness.
Cpt. Zissimatos following his own path, created in the middle 1980’s the maritime Company Adriatic Tankers which engaged with great success globally in the oil transportation, being one of the major and pioneer maritime companies which introduced various innovations in the oil transportation market up until the middle 1990’s before withdrawing from the market.
Cpt. Zissimatos has never stopped up until today observing the proceedings in the global maritime market field, edo so. Today, his main target is to impart all his knowledge and vast experience to the new gngaging peripherally from time to time when his other business activities permitted him to eneration so as to continue for many years more the glorious maritime history of his family.