Maersk Broker is seeking expansion of its consultancy and advisory business after recruiting two well-known industry figures with backgrounds in shipowning and finance.

Former Torm executive Jesper Bo Hansen has been hired to lead a division that has been rebranded Maersk Broker Advisory Services. He is joined by Peter Willems, previously of Oldendorff and most ­recently with HSBC.

Anders Hald, chief executive of Maersk Broker, says the division is an enlarged version of what was previously marketed under the Maersk Broker Financial Services umbrella.

“It’s a new leg but a leg strongly planted, based on what we have been doing for a number of years. We are quite excited about it,” Hald said.

“We are well anchored in our conventional shipbroking activities. It has been a wish from a number of our clients that we extend our services to be more engaged in advisory and consultancy.”

Bo Hansen and Willems know Maersk Broker well, having previously spent time there. Bo Hansen is rejoining a company he left in 2004 for Torm. Willems worked as a sale-and-purchase (S&P) broker for Maersk Broker in the 1990s ­before departing to head up research at JE Hyde. He was later vice-­president – ­­finance at Oldendorff before being hired by HSBC in 2015.

Hald says the appointments come at the same time as Maersk Broker is looking to build its research offering to add what he calls tangible value for clients. A dry cargo seminar in Greece on Tuesday this week was part of that strategy.

“We have done it for quite a while in container vessel chartering and we are making a push on the dry cargo side — to share and also to listen,” he said.

“I think that having more ­engagement within advisory, research and so forth should bring Maersk Broker into a position where we can expand and improve our services for banks and potential investors looking at shipping as a potentially interesting part of their future portfolio.”

Maersk Broker has been actively growing its dry cargo business for the past couple of years, with a new joint venture with Hamburg brokerage Stratos Albis Schiffahrt the latest step in the strategy.

“We certainly have appetite for more, no doubt,” Hald said, adding it was important to grow in the “right way” rather than just “expansion for the sake of expansion”.

“We have made the push in terms of bulk carriers and we will continue to do that,” he said.

“We are expanding within advisory services and research, and then let’s see what is ahead. I will not rule out anything at the ­moment.”