This time last year, Peter Georgio­poulos sat as executive chairman of three public shipping companies he had founded or taken public in New York.

Today, he is down to one, and even his New York-based Gener8 Maritime is at the centre of merger-­and-acquisition talk that could see it take a different form in the coming months.

Greece-based bunker supplier Aegean Marine Petroleum disclosed this week that Georgio­poulos and long-time right-hand man John Tavlarios had failed to win the support of a majority of shareholders for board re-election at the 8 June annual general meeting.