Norwegian shipbroker Lorentzen & Co has declared bankruptcy after over 100 years in business.
The Oslo-based firm submitted a tender request after several years of heavy losses and a name change to Lilleaker Shipping Advisors earlier this week, according to the Norwegian business daily Finansavisen.
Lorentzen & Co was established by the four sons of captain and shipowner Johannes Lorentzen in 1919. Over the next five years, the brothers expanded the business into shipowning and eventually dry cargo ship operations. The shipbroking company was divided into Lorentzen Chartering and F H Lorentzen & Sons in 1959. Lorentzen Chartering was managed by Jørgen Lorentzen, Otto Grieg Tidemand and James Stove Lorentzen. The company was merged with Stemoco in the mid-1990s and the name changed to Lorentzen & Stemoco. In 2013, the Tidemand family bought out the other shareholders of the company.
The company’s debt is said to be around NOK100m ($9.3m), of which it owes close to NOK80m to the parent company Tidships, where recently Kristin Tidemand Eckhoff bought out her sister Caroline Figenschou Tidemand – both representing fourth-generation descendants of Jørgen Lorentzen.
Six out of 16 key employees left the brokerage earlier this year, among them the acting general manager and chief of finance Haakon Hammer. Since then, the company has been led by chairman Christian Andersen. He is also the only remaining board member of what is now Lilleaker Shipping Advisors after the rest of the board resigned just over a year ago.
