A new venture combining a dry bulk operator and a pool has launched in Athens, backed by a range of blue-chip market participants.
Touted as the first bulker platform of its kind in Greece, Bluepool Trading said it would deploy its funds by chartering in panamax vessels on period terms while monitoring and hedging cashflow and market risks with freight derivatives.
In parallel, Bluepool will operate a panamax pool. It will be a spot-only vehicle designed to outperform the index on behalf of its clients. It will do so by taking advantage of its size and by using advanced index-hedging techniques. The pool will commercially manage Bluepool’s chartered-in fleet alongside third-party owned vessels, the company explaned.
Bluepool is led by ex-Noble head of panamax Aris Bachos, ex-GMI/M2M freight derivatives trader Nikolas Gavriilidis and ex-IFCHOR partner Kimon Angelopoulos.
Bluepool head of business development, Kimon Angelopoulos, said: “We have created a modern, well capitalised trading business which provides its investors with an opportunity to benefit from our trading experience in the dry bulk market. With regards to our pool, we observed the many challenges faced by other panamax pools in the past and strived to overcome them. We therefore designed innovative terms to provide shipowners the highest fairness, transparency and flexibility.”
