UK broker Simpson Spence Young (SSY) is partnering with Ioannis Martinos’s Signal Ocean to give rival brokers a run for their money in offering digital commercial management tools for the dry bulk fleet.
Chairman of SSY, Mark Richardson, commented: “We are very excited about this new partnership that enables us to focus on an area of shipping analytics that is fast becoming the differentiator for businesses. As part of our technology strategy, we recognise there is a growing need for cutting edge, data-driven technology in the shipbroking world. Signal Ocean already provides best-in-class solutions to the market and we are looking forward to working together to develop further innovations.”
Martinos, CEO at Signal, added: “Our strategic collaboration with SSY, one of the worlds largest and most forward thinking shipbrokers, puts us in a unique position to develop a deeply value adding solution for the dry market. Our ambition is to cover all dry vessel sizes, giving our users superior minute by minute situational awareness of dry market activity.”
Work is scheduled to begin immediately, while the first phase will focus on deploying, testing and fine-tuning the technology internally at SSY before engaging other interested parties. Signal Ocean already has a tanker platform, launched last year, which has gained significant traction.
Commenting on the news on LinkedIn, Dr Roar Adland, shipping professor at the Norwegian School of Economics and a former employee at Clarkson, wrote: “This strategic tie-up between Signal Ocean and SSY results in a pretty formidable competitor to Clarksons’ Sea.Live and other startups. What will a level playing field and more/better analytics mean for the market? Quite possibly we could see more, not less, violent swings when the market is tight – as everybody plays the same game but with better information.”
