Aegek S.A. - Rebuilding Greece in the 1950s

Rebuilding Greece in the 1950s

Aegek was founded in order to participate in the reconstruction of Greece following the Nazi occupation during World War II. By the 1950s, the company was engaged in various projects in Greece, particularly those relating to the country's development of a modern public infrastructure. Aegek quickly became one of the leading Greek engineering and construction companies, with a focus on public works projects. As such, Aegek participated in a number of important construction projects during its early decades.

One of Aegek's first major projects involved the building of the Irrigation Works of Thessaly, completed in 1955, and the related Lake Karla Tunnel project, completed in 1962, which involved the construction of a drainage tunnel diverting the waters from Thessaly's Lake Karla for irrigation purposes. That project, however, was later recognized as an ecological disaster that resulted in the death of the famed lake.

In the 1970s, Aegek branched out into the private sector. The company joined the important Steyr Hellas project, which brought automotive construction to Greece through Austrian Steyr's attempt to market its trucks and other light vehicles there, including the military-oriented G-Wagon. An automotive plant, built in Salonika, was completed in 1973.

Beginning in the late 1970s, Aegek began developing expertise in a new area when the company began building hydro-electric dams and power plants. Throughout the decade, Aegek had built a number of smaller hydro-electric dams as well as several large-scale projects, such as the hydro-electric power (HEP) unit at Assomati in 1985, the hydro-electric dam at Messohora in 1989, and the Aoos HEP complex, begun in 1990. Aegek emerged as a niche specialist in that area, ultimately forming a dedicated subsidiary, Aegek Energy, to encompass its HEP construction and operations activities.