Michael Nagler is now firmly entrenched in Singapore in a big switch for Noble Chartering.
Nagler moved his department from Hong Kong earlier this year. The move of the department – one of the world’s top dry bulk charterers – was a “rolling” one, Nagler tells Maritime CEO but it is now complete with all chartering for Noble now done out of Singapore – the city state where Noble Group is listed.
“The reason for the move is that we need to be next to our commodity traders,” Nagler says.
In the past 16 years Singapore has managed to woo a majority of the world’s top dry bulk shippers to set up in Singapore, often switching from Hong Kong. This clever wooing has helped shape the Lion City into the great international maritime centre it is today.
Prior to joining Noble as head of chartering, Nagler spent nine years with Electricite de France building and managing their chartering department. Noble Chartering operates a fleet of 200 bulk carriers in the supramax, panamax and cape segments.
On the freight rate markets, Nagler is unsurprisingly downbeat. “It’s heavily oversupplied,” he says, adding: “It will take years of scrapping to create a healthy balance.”
