Athens-based Optima Shipping Services announced its arrival on the Singapore shipbroking scene on Wednesday with a large party that coincided with the city-state’s annual Singapore Maritime Week.
Best known on the sale-and-purchase front, Optima SS is, somewhat surprisingly, only one of less than a handful Greek broking shops to have a presence in the city. Earlier in the week, Singapore reaffirmed its status as the world’s leading maritime hub, according to DNV and Menon’s Leading Maritime Cities report.
That status is what has attracted Optima SS to Singapore’s shores, company chairman and chief executive Dimitrios Koukas told TradeWinds.
“We want, with the power of local knowledge, to connect the world’s leading maritime centre, with the biggest shipowning nation, Greece,” Koukas said.
Singapore has become Optima SS’s fourth office outside of Greece. It established offices in Shanghai and Dubai around 20 years ago, and another in Istanbul about 10 years ago.
“In all honesty, we should have been here earlier,” said Koukas, who stressed that Optima wants its office in Singapore to be a standalone business, not just a representative office.
The focus will be on newbuildings, S&P, repairs and providing support on financing for its clients.
Spearheading the Singapore operation is Winston Yuan, a long-time veteran of Optima SS’s Shanghai office.
“Winston has been part of the Optima SS family for many years and proven himself loyal and trustworthy of handling this position,” said Koukas.
Yuan has started with a five-strong team and the company has ambitions to grow it quickly to 15.
The aim is to recruit locally, although Koukas admits the strong competition for broking talent in Singapore makes this challenging.
“We may bring some Greek brokers across, but this is not a necessity. We trust our team here in Singapore,” Koukas said.
A common complaint among brokers who work for companies with multiple offices in Asia is that there is stiff competition between those offices.
Yuan said he did not expect this will be the case between Optima SS’s two offices as the Shanghai office is strongly focused on Northern Asia, while the Singapore office will facilitate expansion in other parts of the region.
“Our presence in Singapore will open us up to countries in South East Asia,” he said.
Optima SS’s entire team across its five offices comprises 120 people including more than 35 brokers.
Optima SS is not affiliated with Optima International, another Greek brokerage that also has an office in Singapore.
