Dee4 Capital Partners has added two offshore shipbrokers to its team — but do not assume it is a pivot to the sector.
Founder, partner and chairman Carsten Mortensen said the Danish private equity firm remains “segment agnostic” following the hire of Nordsund co-founders Peter Dybdal Terney and Kristoffer Bjornshauge as partners.
Mortensen told TradeWinds: “We are absolutely focused on finding investment and being agnostic as to what segment to invest in.
“We are custodians of our investors’ money and we are not trying to build an empire.
“We very much look at the business case. Where there’s a dislocation on price and future upside, that’s where we focus.”
Dee4 focused primarily on tankers in its first fund, buying seven and selling six as secondhand asset values climbed.
Meanwhile, the offshore sector has attracted interest from big names, such as Evangelos Marinakis and John Fredriksen, with suggestions that there is a huge need for vessels due to demand from conventional oil and gas and offshore wind, and little appetite to build new vessels.
Mortensen said the addition of offshore expertise simply adds competencies to his company’s Copenhagen-based team.
“We’ve known them for quite a few years now,” he said.
“We are delighted that they’re joining the team. They’re born and bred in shipping, they came out of Maersk and the Maersk Broker trainee [programme].”
Terney and Bjornshauge started Nordsund in 2014.
Terney began at AP Moller-Maersk in 2006 and Bjornshauge in 2007, both rising to manage its offshore and specialised tonnage division at Maersk Broker before forming their own outfit.
In June, Dee4 announced that it was liquidating its first fund, having sold six of its seven MR tankers and transferring the seventh — the 49,700-dwt Dee4 Larch (built 2016) — to its second fund.
The company said the first fund had generated a 26% internal rate of return for investors.
In March, it announced the first closing of its second fund, having raised $92m.
It intends to have the final closing of the second fund before 20 March 2025.
