Blue Net Chartering has expanded its operations to around 270 containerships ranging from 1,000 teu up to 15,000 teu.
The Hamburg chartering giant has taken on boxships from Greek and Norwegian owners and is opening its first Asian office, in Singapore.
A handful of ships have been taken from Arne Blystad’s Songa Container, while others have joined from Greek owners Sea Traders and Thenamaris. Athens-based Sea Traders controls containerships for Dynacom.
Blue Net is also taking over commercial management of the eight 5,466-teu ships controlled by Green Containership Group, an Oaktree Capital Management-controlled platform that owns wide-beam boxships that were delivered in 2014 and 2015, charter market sources said.
Running by March
Blue Net has appointed Timothy Ho, who formerly worked with shipbroker H Schuldt, to help run the Singapore office, which is expected to be fully operational by March. Another broker, Marc Serwatzki, will relocate from Hamburg.
The company has divided its operational activities for containerships into three sectors. A first tranche comprises around 110 ships of 3,500 teu or below. About 80 are in the traditional panamax and wide-beam segment (4,000 teu to 6,000 teu). The remaining 70 ships are larger post-panamaxes of 6,000 teu and above.
These are overseen by joint managing directors Simon Aust, Niclas Ahrens, Sebastian Diedrich and Armin Sass.
Aust told TradeWinds that the company wants to improve its service in Asia.
“It doesn’t mean that we don’t fix via brokers, it just means there’s so much information and we need someone on the ground there,” he said.
Blue Net was formed by Greek owner Costamare and Germany’s Peter Dohle in August 2017, when they bundled together a fleet of around 150 boxships.
It expanded to 220 towards the end of last year with the inclusion of a fleet from Norddeutsche Reederei H Schuldt following its acquisition by V. Ships.
Blue Net was created partly as a reaction to the consolidation of liner operators in the container business over the past five years. Aust said the aim was to provide a better service to owners and more flexibility to liner operators that charter the ships.
The company operates around 80 containerships in pools but the goal is to increase this. Aust argued that the pooling of container shipping gives charterers flexibility that is useful during a cascade of larger vessels into different trades.
“We should be able to react to the changes in demand in a much better way than we used to,” he said.
“Our goal with a bigger team is to see things earlier and react to things earlier. And by sharing operational information, you make it easier for them to charter in ships.”
His message to liner operators is one of cooperation: “We’re not against you. We want to work together with you and want to provide you with better service, better assets and more flexible solutions.”
