Singapore: Launched in late January by shipping media veterans at Asia Shipping Media, Maritime CEO this week celebrates its 100th interview.
Every day we catch up with a top name in shipping to gauge their thoughts on the industry, with every Friday guaranteed to be a shipowner interview. Our aim is to cover every facet of the industry, but only from the viewpoint of the top echelon of management. In our first 100 reports we have met up with the heads of:
· the world’s largest containerline
· the world’s largest breakbulk operator
· the world’s largest dry bulk operator
· the world’s largest LPG operator
· the world’s largest car carrier operator
· the world’s largest shipowning grouping
Every day this week we bring highlights from our first 100 interviews, split into segments. Monday sees the Maritime CEO team – with 17 correspondents across the globe – tackle the legal world.
“Lawyers are men who hire out their words and anger” Horace
Harry Theochari, the head of transport for global law firm Norton Rose, was quick to discuss the financial plight of shipowners when we caught up with him in late March this year.
Questions perennially asked to Theochari these days are typical of the shipping downturn: how to avoid bank foreclosures; the best way to go about restructuring and refinancing; and where to go to source alternative forms of financing.
“Many lines are near bust and some will have to bite the bullet,” conceded the seasoned lawyer, who has more than 30 years experience in the field, 28 of which have been with Norton Rose.
On the changing face of private equity in shipping Theochari said, “Increasingly they are not just here to buy assets but buy whole books, buying the portfolios of banks who have quit shipping.”
Meanwhile, the slump in shipping has made owners seek greater commercial flexibility in their legal dealings, Susanne Munch Thore, managing partner at Norway’s Wikborg Rein, told Maritime CEO in the middle of February.
“The shipping sector still has structural issues around debt, oversupply, and finance to overcome,” Thore warned.
Thore noted that while clients look to the law to protect their position, they are equally looking for “commercial flexibility and pragmatic solutions”.
A month later when we headed to London’s Holman Fenwick Willan we tapped Paul Dean for an interview, when he’d be in the role of global shipping practice boss for just a week. His key recommendation to shipowners in this tricky year was not to hang around asking for legal advice.
“Our advice to owners is always that it is prudent to seek our guidance early in a transaction or a dispute,” he said. “In my experience, the earlier we are involved the more value we can provide.”
Over at Watson, Farley & Williams, the head of maritime practice Chris Lowe told Maritime CEO that shipowners' best weapon remained careful due diligence on charterers’ solvency.
“There are now a number of funds that have acquired interests in tonnage,” he sald this site, “and in addition to managers and operators, all need to be kept abreast of changes that affect every aspect of a ship’s lifecycle, from order and construction, sale and purchase, chartering and operation to decommissioning and recycling.”
Maritime CEO’s mission is to be a global source of information and while we seek heads of big global organisations, we find we get just as much feedback when we go after experts of individual countries or regions, and this is something that certainly holds true when reporting legal matters with owners keen to find out how jurisdictions around the world vary.
For instance, in the middle of April this year our Dubai correspondent caught up with Jasamin Fichte, the German national who runs one of the UAE’s best known maritime legal firms, Fichte & Co. She was able to provide a very useful checklist of how Dubai maritime rulings both mirror and fracture from other jurisdictions. Providing similar insight plus market commentary on the booming local offshore scene was Malaysian lawyer Fuzet Farid in mid-May, underlining this site’s commitment to seek out experts in fields far and wide. [10/06/13]
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NEED TO KNOW: Maritime CEO Magazine
Maritime CEO is launching a quarterly magazine with the first issue publishing in August. The hardcopy of the magazine will be distributed to c-level executives around the globe and the online version will be available free of charge to all visitors to this site. This is your chance to advertise to the very top people in shipping, learn more via our media kit HERE and for special launch issue rates contact Grant Rowles on grant@asiashippingmedia.com.
