Shipbroker Affinity (Shipping) has employed two big names in broking as it starts to consider its succession moves and the skillset it needs to guide the industry into a period of fleet renewal.
Sale-and-purchase specialist Sebastian Davenport-Thomas will join the company on 2 April and be one of the most senior brokers in the brokerage’s 11-person strong S&P team.
Affinity has also bought Vortex Shipbroking — a company set up by clean product broker Mike Rudd in May 2018.
Rudd and his son, Max, will also join on 2 April. Together with Simon Hammond on operations, they will add three to Affinity’s clean petroleum products desk.
Speaking to TradeWinds about the new hires, Affinity managing partner Richard Fulford-Smith said the company needed to bring in heavyweights with experience and expertise, who can add value for clients and help them navigate some of the upcoming regulatory challenges that face ship and cargo owners.
Speculation has been swirling about Davenport-Thomas’ next move since his shock exit from rival shop Braemar on 29 September.
The high-profile broker, who has been on six months’ gardening leave, is highly regarded in the sector and widely liked.
Fulford-Smith said Davenport-Thomas is “an extremely important signing for us”. “He brings experience, knowledge and empathy,” he said, adding that he is “a really nice guy”.
He said Rudd, who also previously worked with Davenport-Thomas at Braemar and will now work alongside Affinity’s long-standing clean tanker broker Daniel Hockey, will bring a great deal of experience in the term clean petroleum products business and is an equally important appointment.
“We haven’t recently made many senior signings,” he added. “We are very excited to have these big names coming on board.”
Fulford-Smith was upfront that the hirings are part of Affinity’s succession moves.
The well-known face and voice of shipbroking, who admits to loving the business, said his role has been to build up the company — which will celebrate its 10th anniversary in 2025.
“I want to help my colleagues fashion the future of the business which is focused on doing this through its different sub-sectors.”
But he stressed that he is not about to walk away from Affinity, nor has he been asked to by his partners, and he wants to make sure the future of the company is assured.
He has ambitions to build up its deepsea desks and would like to add LPG to the brokerage’s capabilities. The company also has an interest in expanding further in several geographical regions.
Fulford-Smith said he likes the structure of Affinity, which he believes has a greater level of transparency on its revenue and costs than other broking shops.
All about people
The company has a flat structure, without titles, a broad spread of equity and ploughs 25% of its profit back into growing the business, he explained.
Reflecting on the shipbroking world — about which he has been exceptionally vociferous of late — Fulford-Smith said: “Hiring really decent people is pretty tricky.”
He said most shipbrokers tend to specialise in a narrow field and while this is very important for revenue generation, today there is also a need for those that can act in an advisory role and provide in-depth expertise and understanding.
The veteran broker, who wants to stay involved in shipping, added that shipbroking and the wider industry remains “all about people”.
Shipbrokers often sit between those with opposing positions and people skills are most important, he said.
“I love it and I love the business,” he said.
