Masterbulk closes shipmanagement divison, seeks third party manager for its own fleet

Singapore: A sea change in direction for Masterbulk, the Singapore offshoot of Westfal-Larsen Shipping, has seen it axe early plans to get into shipmanagement, Splash can exclusively reveal.

Masterbulk, which owns 20 open hatch supramaxes, had made plans to diversify revenues by getting into third party management. Not only is it canning this venture, it is now switching its own ships to another third party manager.

Nicholas Fisher, Masterbulk’s ceo, told Splash: “This wasn’t an easy decision, but the economics of running this as a standalone ship management business for the number of vessels involved could no longer be justified in the current depressed market. Shipping companies of all sizes are having to look at where they can reduce costs and maximize efficiencies. Ship management is an economies scale game with increasingly small margins involved, and I believe we will see further consolidation in the market.”

The decision to close the shipmanagement division will result in many redundancies, Fisher confirmed.

Masterbulk said it would reveal which shipmanager it was transferring its ships to later on. Splash understands that the shortlist is now down to two.