Editorial:

Commercial vigour

Anyone in doubt of the importance of committed ownership should just consider the different paths of A P Møller and Bergesen.

CA market governed by economic cycles and structural changes offers new competitive relations, challenges and opportunities to the shipping communities in Northern Europe. Beyond the obvious importance of the general operating conditions rendered by the politicians, more appears to depend on the commercial drive and ambition within the communities.
Everybody will have noticed the ambitious progress of the German shipping industry, despite the declared doom for container vessels two years ago. The fleet has doubled in less than ten years, and the last year has seen a bustle of ordering and buying product tankers, combined carriers or crude oil tankers, in addition to a new boom in container vessel orders. To some extent the acquisition of modern ships on T/Cs could be considered as refinancing on behalf of the sellers who will continue in commercial control, but the German owners have clearly whetted their appetite for new sectors of shipping.
Danish shipping has seen brisk progress, and Copenhagen has attracted commercial and management functions for Norwegian, Swedish and Russian owners. Although diminished in numbers, the large Danish owners appear to be well situated in the commercial process of consolidation, headed by Maersk and Torm.
Sweden has seen a revival in spirit and activity from its new tax system for seafarers and ship operation, with a significant upturn of tonnage commitment by the Swedish owners.
Norway presents much of an opposite spectre under an industry-neutral policy which has effectively abandoned any national ambition in the maritime sector. No more than 55 per cent of the Norwegian-attributed tonnage is in fact owned by bone-fide Norwegian companies. The viking spirit appears to have run out at last, as Teekay has succeeded in picking up the juiciest bits of the tanker activities, the Bergesen cousins selling out their empire of a hundred ships, and cash-rich shipping families are investing in property, biotech and fish-farming; not always with success. The once-thriving Oslo community appears to be the most affected.
The shipping history is rolling on; the main thing is to focus on the customers, and to achieve this, everything depends on the commercial organization and the readiness to invest for the future. In other words, in commercial vigour and ambition to develop and grow.
For better or worse, shipping is an entrepreneur-driven industry, and anyone in doubt of the importance of committed owners should compare the entrepreneurial vigour of the company formed by Arnold Peter Møller in 1904 with the one by his one-time managing director Sig Bergesen d y in 1935.

 

// Dag Bakka Jr - Editor

Back to SSG 16, 5 September