Exotic Asia

By Kevin Oates

Pretty much the whole world is banking on Asia these days. If the economic growth rate of China and India and the other emerging economies of the region were to flounder, we would all be in big trouble. And it appears that our banking brothers are also keen on the region with many of the major global ship lenders now well established here. We feature a selection of key shipping financiers in Asia on our front cover. These include from left to right Woon Aw Yong (UniCredit Bank AG), Kartal Cona (NIBC Bank Ltd), Stefanie Koh (DnB NOR Markets, Asia), Aksel C. Olesen (Pareto Securities Asia), Katrine N. Ruud (Nordea Bank Singapore), Michiel Steeman (DVB Group Merchant Bank Asia Ltd), Meeyoung Choi (Meriel Partners), Pierre Carassus (ING Bank N.V. Singapore) and Abhishek Pandey, Standard Chartered Bank.

From afar Asia is exotic, different, apparently striding forward despite the economic turmoil in the rest of the world. It is also colourful and happy. Well, I have news for you. It is the same from close up too. I am privileged to be the new MD of our Marine Money Asia office in Singapore. I have been here for two months now, and can categorically state what a different world it is.

Written by: marinemoney | Categories: Marine Money, Offshore Rankings | August 1st, 2011 | Add a Comment

Posidonia: Business as Usual

By Kevin Oates

Crisis in Greece. Defaulting on debt? Riots! Those visiting Posidonia would never know we are living in such a turbulent time.

As we all know Posidonia takes place every two years. The prior one in June 2008 was before the financial and shipping crisis hit hard. The parties were big, the exhibition impressive, the mood buoyant. In June 2009, many were thankful it was not a Posidonia year.

Written by: marinemoney | Categories: Freshly Minted, The Week in Review | June 10th, 2010 | Add a Comment

Full House in Athens – Part 2

By Kevin Oates

…in the longer term shipping should correct but quality, transparency and financial strength are key to survival.

Despite the tough market and the general lack of ship finance, Marine Money’s Greek Ship Finance Forum again filled the seats in Athens. With 310 delegates and speakers and some 40 more for the TEN Ltd lunch, there was plenty gossip and exchange of views at the 11th Annual conference held on the 8th of October 2009.

The event had started with a speaker’s dinner the previous night co-hosted by Navios Maritime Holdings and was to end in the early hours of the following morning at the Capital Party co-hosted by Capital Product Partners LP at a well-known Athens nightclub. Even if the market is tough, we still know how to enjoy ourselves.

Back at the conference, our day began with Guy Verberne, a leading economist at Fortis Bank (Nederland) telling us that the economic recovery has come and it may well be sustainable. China, he says, has plenty foreign reserves to prolong it’s stimulus package for as long as it needs and he sees no meaningful cutbacks from the stimulus packages of western governments, at least through 2010. A risk is a double dip in 2011 if we get too bogged down in debt.
Continue Reading

Written by: carisk | Categories: Freshly Minted, Market Commentary | October 15th, 2009 | Add a Comment

“Erin Go Bragh”

Despite a reasonable starting time of 10 AM, the delegates to the 2nd Annual Marine Money Dublin Ship Finance Forum filed in early ever ready to meet old friends and make new contacts. If there was one single takeaway from this conference for us it is the fact that the Irish people are happy, warm, smart, blunt and can charm your pants off. This is what makes it a great business center, not all the fancy tax stuff. Notwithstanding my frivolous view, keep up the good work, Jim; it does really make a difference. As we usually do, we have extracted below insights and comments that in our prejudiced or self-serving view we thought were useful or interesting. We are faced with our usual problem of so much to choose from and so little space.

Written by: carisk | Categories: Equity, Freshly Minted, Market Commentary, The Week in Review | November 13th, 2008 | Add a Comment

MukemmelBirForum

Last Thursday, the 5th annual Marine Money Istanbul Ship Finance Forum took place within sight of the Bosporus at the Swissotel. In our mind, there could not be a more appropriate setting for this or any shipping conference.

After greetings from Marine Money’s Mia Jensen and Kevin Oates, Mr. Metin Kalkavan, as Chairman of the Turkish Chamber of Shipping gave brief introductory remarks which included interesting numbers on the Turkish shipbuilding industry. He was followed to the podium by Mr. Lucien Arkas, the Chairman of Arkas Holdings, who gave the keynote address. Mr. Arkas provided a concise history of his 44 years in shipping. But more importantly, he attributed the Turkish owners’ success in this industry to their high level of entrepreneurship, courage and self-esteem.

Written by: carisk | Categories: Conferences, Freshly Minted, People & Places | April 24th, 2008 | Add a Comment

Gulf Ship Finance Forum

That changed was evinced by the turn out of over 200 delegates for Marine Money’s 4th annual Gulf Ship Finance Forum. The delegates hailed from locally based business and from across the globe to talk about ship finance prospects in the Middle East. As many global banks struggle to meet their clients’ needs, many Gulf banks remain flush with the cash that continues to flow into the region. Interest has reached a peak, for both Shariah compliant and more traditional bank facilities. This gathering of experts in shipping and finance of the region was thus highly illuminating and instructive.

Written by: carisk | Categories: Conferences, Freshly Minted | March 6th, 2008 | Add a Comment

Dahlman Rose & Dry Bulk

After initiating bullish coverage on DryShips last week, Dahlman Rose & Company has issued a comprehensive report covering the entire dry bulk shipping sector. With dry bulk IPOs lined up at the SEC and owners believing, with conviction, that the boom will continue, a report predicting that the supply/demand balance will remain tight in the sector for the foreseeable future is a welcome one indeed. The Dahlman Rose analysts attribute the strength of the dry bulk market to the strength of the world economy, and they back up their belief in this with sections dedicated to macro economic drivers, the impact of China and an analysis of bulk commodity markets including steel, iron ore, coal and grain.

The analysts further consider the age profile of the global dry bulk fleet, current orderbooks, shipyard capacity and port congestion to come to a forecast for the supply side of the dry bulk shipping equation. The report concludes that commodity demand will continue to increase faster than supply, particularly as the 37% of the world dry bulk fleet over 20 years old is nearing retirement age. As a result, Dahlman Rose expects the supply/demand imbalance that has proven so fortuitous for ship owners and operators to continue at least another three years “barring a global recession or some exogenous system shock.”

The 2nd Annual Marine Money Istanbul Ship Finance Forum, was held on Thursday, 7th April 2005, at the Swissotel – The Bosphorus in Istanbul. The mood was buoyant as the Turkish shipping community continued to enjoy the high shipping market and the boom in shipbuilding activities in the country’s shipyards. Istanbul was also enjoying considerable focus from foreign financiers and shipping service providers as evidenced by over 70 non-Turkish participants in the total number of 250 speakers and delegates.

We would like to thank our anchor sponsor Geden Lines and our prime sponsor Turkon Line as well as our many corporate sponsors for the success of our event this year. Support as always was given by the Turkish Chamber of Shipping and its president Metin Kalkavan.

The day started with a previously unannounced presentation from Michael Drayton, Chairman-elect of the Baltic Exchange to Metin Kalkavan and Erol Yucel of the Turkish Chamber of Shipping, for the many years of close co-operation between the two.

Our presentations started with a review of the world economic outlook by Dr. Christina Stahn of HSH Nordbank. This was followed by a wet and dry market review from Galbraiths. Overall both the economic outlook and the wet market outlook were optimistic. But Dr. Philip Rogers stunned the audience by painting a rather gloomy picture of the dry market over the next 18 months. The supply of new ships will well outstrip the increased demand, he said. Today’s high freight rates will be a distant dream, and shipowners may well see historical lows again in dry bulk. Needless to say, this caused quite a stir, as well as some aggravated discussion in the coffee break that followed.

The international finance community, represented by DVB Bank, HSH Nordbank, GE Capital and Caterpillar Financial Services discussed lending at the top of the market. All cautioned against being too aggressive in this high market, but all also reiterated their commitment to the Turkish market in the year ahead.

After lunch we had three presentations on alternative financing opportunities for Turkish owners. These involved KG Finance, presented by Christian Salamon of Salamon AG, Islamic Finance presented by Bote de Vries of DVB and NFC Shipping Funds and U.S. capital markets by Stefanie Kasselakis of Jefferies & Co. Ms. Kasselakis also discussed market sentiment and, contrary to Galbraiths, painted a fairly rosy picture of the next few years in the dry market with China’s continued growth keeping freight rates healthily high.

After hearing about the importance of class from Gunay Surenkok of DNV, our final session discussed Turkish shipbuilding and its continuing performance riding the boom market. Turkish bank representatives, as well as panelists from a Turkish shipyard and a Greek owner building in Turkey, advised that Turkish shipbuilding is here to stay, with yard orderbooks full through 2007 and beyond. And the Turkish banks are increasingly willing to finance this construction boom; they are also initiating term loans for Turkish shipowners for vessels post-delivery, something which even last year was still consigned to the drawing board.

Metin Kalkavan of the Turkish Chamber of Shipping and Kevin Oates of Marine Money Greece brought the day to an end with reflective closing remarks.

There is no doubt that Turkish shipping is on the radar screen of the international finance community, and Marine Money is intent on continuing to bring that community to Istanbul.

Incidentally, the night before the conference there was also very enjoyable Speaker’s Dinner, which was attended by virtually all of the major players in the Turkish shipowning community. We were privileged also to have the Minister of Transport, Mr. Binali Yildirim, who gave a speech highlighting developments in Turkish shipping and the maritime sector. To note is that Mr. Yildirim is a naval architect by training and was previously a finance director in a major Turkish shipping sector. That alone shows the determination of Turkey to support its maritime industry!!

Written by: carisk | Categories: Freshly Minted, The Week in Review | April 14th, 2005 | Add a Comment

CONSOLIDATION, ITS MAKIN ’ ME WAIT

In a notice to the Oslo Stock Exchange on 7th April, World Nordic ApS, a company that is held by and represents the Sohmen family has stated that the company has acquired 16,575,106 A-shares in Bergesen d.y. ASA, constituting the total number of shares previously held by cousins Petter C G Sundt and Morten Sig. Bergesen, at a price of NOK 180 per share. The sellers have sold on the condition that the buyer puts forward an offer to the other shareholders, based on the same price, adjusted for the proposed dividend of NOK 7 per share. Regardless, the Sohmen family holds more than 50% of the venerable Norwegian blue-chip flagship before the offer goes to the other shareholders.

The combination of the assets of the two shipping empires will make one of the largest shipping entities in the world that is also significantly diversified and most likely will become and remain a private corporation.

Or will it? Once this deal is complete and presuming that it is fully successful, one is right to speculate that the combined entity might try to raise equity on the US public markets under a new name and registered offshore. This may take time and will largely be dictated by the combined entity’s balance sheet but it is a possibility. A possibility that is also very likely some time down the road.

Written by: carisk | Categories: Marine Money | April 1st, 2003 | Add a Comment