Österreichischer Lloyd, a grand old name of European shipping whose heritage stretches back to 1836, is going through a rebrand as it looks to garner investors.
The Cypriot brand is now known as ÖL Group.
Explaining the change in name in a release, the company said: “ÖL chose to rebrand to clearly and visually identify her services to its associated industry related partners, existing investors and to welcome new investors by also incorporating her original motto ‘Vorwärts’: Always Steaming Ahead.”
The rebranding further represents the company ownership / structure changes to pure shipowning that took place in 2008 with a name change in the German word, ‘Seereederei’ to Oesterreichischer Lloyd Seereederei (Cyprus) Ltd. The company has interests in containerships and dry bulk.
Captain Eberhard Koch, the chairman of the company, says container shipping has far brighter prospects than dry bulk for the forseeable future.
“With huge a orderbook for bulkers for 2015 and 2016, the market does not look promising for this year, at least,” he tells Maritime CEO.
“Things look brighter for container shipping in 2015,” he says. “We recognise rising volumes which will help to support freight rates and tonnage demand. When we are very optimistic, the expected demand may even outstrip the supply over the next 12 months.”
Koch is especially optimistic when it comes to smaller boxship sizes where there is significant scrapping and almost a zero orderbook.
“We have seen much lower lay-up numbers in both terms of numbers of ships and total TEU and this during the traditionally low winter times compared to previous years. We see chartering activities are very active these days,” he says.
As for his own fleet plans, Koch says there are definitely no newbuilds to be ordered anytime soon. Second hand multipurpose vessels on the other hand are a possibility.
