In 2014, he retired from the position of CEO and president in favour of his son Diego Aponte, assuming the role of executive chairman within MSC.
[5][2] In 2009, at the Teatro di San Carlo of Naples, he received, along with Fabio Cannavaro, Ambra Vallo and others, a prize for "Neapolitan Excellence in the World" from then-Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
[6] In 2012, he won the Cruise International Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his long term activity in the industry.
[7] In October 2013, he received Containerisation International's Lifetime Achievement Award,[8] as well as a knighthood, the Order of Merit for Labour, from Italian President Giorgio Napolitano.
[10][11] He is married to Rafaela Aponte-Diamant, a Swiss woman of Israeli origin, and daughter of a Geneva banker, he met when she was a passenger on a boat of which he was the captain.