20 May 2005 TradeWinds 35
www.tradewinds.no
NEWS
Haji-Ioannou
backs new
broking team
Bassoe loses out as
major Greek tanker
player switches
business.
Trond Lillestolen
Oslo
A new company set up by five
brokers leaving PF Bassoe & Co
will become the exclusive broker
for Polyar Tankers, the Norwegian
tanker arm of Greek owner Polys
Haji-Ioannou.
Bassoe has been the sole broker
for Polyar, which operates a fleet
of six VLCCs and four aframax
tankers, and is the second biggest
tanker operator in Norway. HajiIoannou says this position will be
transferred to the new company.
TradeWinds had previously reported that Bassoe had a 25%
stake in Polyar but the sharehold-
POLYS HAJI-IOANNOU
Photo:Gillian Whittaker
ing situation is now unclear.
Einar Danbolt, managing director of Bassoe since 1997, is set to
quit the company at the end of
this month and is reluctant to
comment on the new company’s
plans until then.
It appears the sale-and-pur-
chase (S&P) department of Bassoe
will be mostly affected by the departures of Richard Fuglesang
and Herman Marcussen, leaving
Bassoe with only one broker in
this department.
Senior analyst and partner OleRikard Hammer, who has been
appointed new managing director, says Bassoe is continuosly
discussing its personnel situation
but that there are no immediate
plans to replace the five who are
leaving. He declines to comment
on the relations to Polyar, stating:
“We don’t comment on relations
with our customers.”
Fuglesang is leaving Bassoe at
the end of May, while Marcussen
and tanker charter brokers Halvor
Ellefsen and Vegard Eriksen are
staying until the end of August.
Hammer says he regrets the departure of the brokers.
As of last year, Bassoe had on
average a staff of 29.
Cyprus and Malta off Paris MOU blacklist
Dale Wainwright
Singapore
Cyprus and Malta have been officially dropped from the Paris
MOU port-state control blacklist.
Confirmation of the upgrading
of both flag states to the grey list
came at a meeting of the Paris
MOU in Helsinki last week.
Both countries, along with
Lithuania, are now said to be
poised for full membership.
“With Lithuania, Cyprus and
Malta waiting in the wings, the region is close to plugging all of the
gaps in its North Atlantic and European coverage,” said Paris
MOU general secretary Richard
Schiferli.
Estonia and Latvia, up until
now co-operating members, were
officially confirmed as the 21st
and 22nd members of the regime
at the Helsinki meeting.
The Paris MOU’s executive
committee agreed to adopt a new
“risk-based” inspection strategy
to replace its 25% quota system
that members opted to scrap last
year.
Former SSY brokers
start new S&P outfit
Liz Shuker
London
Trafalgar Shipping & Trading, a
new sale-and-purchase (S&P)
broking outfit formed by five
ex-Simpson, Spence & Young
(SSY) brokers, has officially
opened for business in London.
The team is made up of Toby
Owles, James Tribe, Simon
Roberts, Fraser Nightingale and
Gareth Jones. All five brokers
quit from the SSY London office in February and have been
serving a three-month period of
contractual absence from the
market.
From its Chancery Lane office, Trafalgar says it plans to
offer clients “comprehensive
coverage” of the S&P market,
including newbuildings, secondhand/ demolition sales and
a full market analysis and valuation service.
Trafalgar will likely be able to
build a strong presence in the
dry and wet S&P newbuilding
and secondhand markets.
Owles is an ex-Clarkson guy
who joined SSY about eight
years ago. Tribe was in Hong
Kong and Singapore for SSY before returning to London.
One of Owles’s major clients
is said to be Taiwan Maritime
Transport, which sources say
bought and sold at a profit with
Owles’s help on various WorldWide VLCCs.
Tribe has also handled a lot of
business in 2004, including
World-Wide VLCC sales. The
owner has been clearing out its
single-hull ships and ordering
newbuildings.
Jones is said to have a Greek
client on a largely exclusive basis, while Roberts has close
links with customers in India.
Nightingale and Roberts were
among three brokers who defected in late 2002 from London
shipbroker Galbraith’s.
Asians backing out of sales
Jonathan Boonzaier
Singapore
A slight softening of prices for
secondhand tankers over the
past two weeks is causing Asian
buyers to back out of purchase
negotiations.
This week, Malaysian buyers
were said to be buying the
Pleiades Shipping-controlled
single-hull, 63,000-dwt tanker
Evros (built 1983) but that deal
has fallen through.
Tanker sources say the buyer
failed to lift subjects on time and
then backed out of the deal.
Brokers say the market price
for the ship had dropped to
around $5.8m by the time the
deal finally failed.
Two weeks ago, Indonesia’s
Berlian Laju Tankers (BLT) was
poised to buy Valles Steamship’s 97,000-dwt Seafalcon
(built 1991) for $30.5m but in
the end it also did not go ahead
with the purchase.
Sources close to the deal say
that, even though BLT did eventually buy Valles Steamship’s
101,000-dwt Seamaster (built
1990) for $27.5m, negotiations
for the Seafalcon proved inconclusive. The vessel remains up
for sale.
Tanker prices have been negatively affected by spot- and period-charter rates, which have
headed on a southward course
in recent weeks.
Shipyard and
owners share
proud moment
Ian Lewis
Istanbul
The launch of the largest tanker
ever built by a private Turkish
shipyard proved to be an event of
enormous pride.
Over 1,000 guests, including
Turkish ministers and a large Italian shipping contingent, turned
out for the launch of the 25,000dwt, IMO II chemical/oil tanker
Ottomana at the Celik Tekne
shipyard in Tuzla Bay.
The event clearly provided as
much personal pride to shipowners Giorgio and Paolo Cagnoni of
Mediterranea di Navigazione as it
did national pride to the Turkish
shipping community.
Everyone who assisted in getting the ship off the drawing
board and into the water turned
up, including Giorgio La Valle of
Trieste-based Marine Engineering
Services (MES), who designed
the sophisticated vessel, and
Burke & Novi’s sale-and-purchase
guru Alan Buchanan, who bro-
Giorgio La Valle of MES
Mehmet Taylan of Celik Tekne
Alan Buchanan of Burke & Novi
Novelmar broker Nanni Vignolo
Shipowners Paolo and Giorgio Cagnoni, managing director and president of
Mediterranea di Navigazione
Photos: Ian Lewis
kered the deal. Others making the
journey from Italy were Nanni Vignolo of shipbrokers Novelmar,
who fixed the ship for three years
to Italian oil company Eni, which
was represented by chartering
manager Riccardo Baratozzi.
The Turkish contingent included shipyard boss Mehmet Taylan
as well as a representatives from
Turkey’s Yapi Kredi Bank, who
arranged a finance package involving 100% payment on delivery. All enjoyed the generous hospitality of the Cagnoni family,
which combined an emotional
launch with an evening cocktail
cruise on the Bosporus. Dinner in
a spectacular historical palace
was rounded off — to the delight
of all present — by a captivating
sight of a trio of belly dancers.