Silence Is Golden

It’s Wednesday, as we write this, and for the first time we can remember in months it’s been a quiet week in terms of transactions. We took the opportunity of a free moment to meet with Mark Friedman and Hugh Baker of Evercore Partners. Our agenda was twofold: we wanted to understand how Evercore is positioning itself in the competitive landscape of investment banking and to engage in a post-mortem of the recent shipping equity offerings to better understand why some have succeeded while others struggled.

Evercore is different. It is obvious when you walk into their offices, which are quieter than a library should be. There is no trading floor. This is about advisory work in the old style, built on relationships and trust. Like all bankers, they are client-centric, but with a difference. Lacking distribution, they are less driven by the constant need to feed securities through a distribution network. Instead, they are focused on long-term relationships and providing the highest quality advice with respect to their clients’ strategic needs.
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A Great Catch

It is official! Hugh Baker, formerly of HSH-Nordbank and ING, will join Evercore Partners as a Managing Director reporting to Mark Friedman. According to Mr. Friedman, “ We feel very fortunate to bring Hugh to Evercore.  He is an extraordinarily talented banker with deep industry knowledge and strong relationships globally.   His skills and relationships make him a perfect fit for Evercore’s shipping restructuring and advisory practice.” Welcome aboard.

Athenian and Viking Confab

In front of a packed crowd at the New York Helmsley, the Hellenic-American and Norwegian-American Chambers of Commerce held their 14th Annual Joint Shipping Conference under the catchy title “Are the Bulls and the Bears Right?”

The day started off with derivatives, a tough topic for early in the morning. Nevertheless, the presenters pulled it off and kept everyone interested. To start off Robert Shaw of Mystras Ventures gave a great overview and primer on freight derivatives. In particular, he emphasized their importance of derivatives for hedging but noted that freight volatility and correlation with other commodities has attracted financial players into the market, a recurrent theme.

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