Norvic Shipping chairman AJ Rahman is in talks with potential investors about project-based investments to expand the business beyond dry bulk.
But the Canadian founder denied rumours the company is up for sale.
Multiple sources told TradeWinds this week that Norvic has been for sale for some time but has struggled to find takers for its asset-light business.
The rumours come as former or departing Norvic executives led by Mudit Paliwal and Henrik Jeremiassen are setting up a new shop, Delta Corp.
Paliwal and Jeremiassen, who were previously in Denmark, have left and their positions as chief operating officer and managing director, respectively, have yet to be filled.
Norvic operates about 110 chartered-in ships, which Rahman claims makes it the biggest dry bulk operator in the US, and the world's second largest pure non-shipowner operator.
Investment options
In an interview this week Rahman and his chief financial officer Urs Dur outlined the options for bringing in investors who could help it grow its business.
Norvic's financials are not public but Rahman put 2018 revenues at about $600m, and is targeting $700m for the current year.
He described 2018 as a profitable year, with revenue growth vindicating the company's new strategy after last year's hire of J Lauritzen managing director Peter Borup and the departure of Paliwal and Jeremiassen.
He explained staff defections to start-up Delta Corp as normal in a business like chartering.
"Mudit brought in a couple of guys and when he left, he took them along," he said.
Strategic differences with Borup were behind Paliwal's departure, while he described Jeremiassen's exit as a "personnel matter".
"We did not quite agree with the way Mudit wanted to run the company," Rahman said. "The changes we made in January after Mudit left have made us even stronger."
After moving the company's head office to New York earlier this year, Rahman said he has "received a lot of interest from people, especially funds" that have some experience of shipping investments but want to try a new tack.
"They have all burned their fingers but now they are taking an interest in the asset-light kind of company," he said.
This means finding ways to exploit advantages Norvic enjoys in dry bulk operations to expand into new but compatible areas, but on the basis of projects in which investors could take a stake.
"The company is not up for sale," Rahman said. "Within the next two years, we have the ambition to cross the billion-dollar line [in annual revenues]," he said, and added that within five years, that could go to $2bn.
"The operating business itself is not going to help us go there."
Rahman cited potential bolt-on projects including heavylift shipping, cattle carriers and a big contract of affreightment that would entail an investment of some $60m, as well as acquiring lighterage vessels for use in connection with supramaxes.
Whatever the new projects, Norvic itself will remain asset light.
"We don't own and I don't think we have any intention of owning," said Rahman.
Any outside capital would be for project-based investments to be managed by Norvic.
"We have received half a dozen expressions of interest," he said.
Meanwhile, market sources said Rahman has been keen to cash out of the asset-light dry bulk operator for some time.
"It would have to be somebody who wanted to buy Norvic's platform," an observer said. "It's a great global network with good charterer relationships but no ships."
Others believe building up that network was not necessarily a well-timed investment.
"AJ hired all the top dogs. His overheads must be very challenging," another chartering source said.
