Laurent Cadji-led Union Maritime has quietly assembled a mix of fresh and well-seasoned shareholders for its latest shipowning venture, including billionaire commodities trader Aristotelis Mistakidis, known as Telis.
Mistakidis is one of the three partner groups in the London-based owner's bulker-buying campaign.
Ownership documents also reveal that names associated with well-known Greek shipbroker Cass Technova and Spring Marine Management hold a large stake in the fleet of its client and partner Union Maritime.
Union Maritime has a complicated corporate and ownership structure but is controlled by the Cadji and Kansagra families, featuring a varying cast of minority shareholders in subsidiary entities both at the single-vessel and the sub-fleet level.
The big newcomer among these, Thessaloniki-born, Zug-based Mistakidis, has not been known for shipowning investments before. But records at the UK's Companies House show that his Swiss-based investment vehicle Anastacia held initial shares varying from 33% to 40% in four companies established this year as vehicles for buying bulk carriers.
The former head of copper trading at commodities giant Glencore is currently credited with a $2.7bn fortune by Forbes' rich list.
As of February, Mistakidis held a 3.48% shareholding in Glencore. Published reports characterise him as a former right-hand man to former Glencore boss Ivan Glasenberg.
Mistakidis' departure from the non-ferrous metals post came in December 2018, while the company was under heavy legal and political pressure over allegations about its commercial practices in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where its largest copper assets are located.
TradeWinds has previously reported on Union Maritime's sudden venture into the dry side this year, with the acquisition of about eight ships from handysize to capesize under various forms of ownership and financing.
Most recently, TradeWinds has reported on a further acquisition of five handysize vessels from London-based financial owner Tufton Oceanic Assets, bringing the total dry bulk fleet to about 18 including three ships financed through the Chinese financial leasing system.
But Union Maritime's approach to sourcing equity is a collaborative one and financial filings by the new bulker-owning entities illustrate that.
Four Union Maritime bulker subsidiaries were founded this year as vehicles for the bulker build-up. They are Capesize Holdco, Kamsarmax Holdco, Supramax Holdco and Handymax Holdco. Each has three shareholders each, but with differing names and proportions of shares, and with different degrees of transparency about ultimate ownership.
Cass Technava connection
But all have the same three board members, corresponding to three shareholder groups: Cadji representing Union Maritime's established shareholders, Anastacia director Mark Verschoyle representing Mistakidis, and Nikolaos Fragkoudakis representing a third set of shareholders.
Fragkoudakis is a financial official of Virono Union Maritime, which is an established ship-management joint venture between Union Maritime and the partners of Cass Technava.
Union Maritime chief operating officer Tristan Frisell declined to comment on questions from TradeWinds about group shareholding participations, and efforts to reach Verschoyle for comment were unsuccessful.
But Fragkoudakis underscored in a message to TradeWinds that Cass Technava and Spring Marine are not related to Union Maritime, and that he himself is "not related by any means to Cass Technava shareholders or management team". But he acknowledged having been asked similar questions before.
Although Fragkoudakis did not comment on whose interests he represents on the boards, he said he himself is only a director, not a shareholder.
He added: "There are Greek investors such as Alexander Panagiotis Tomazos, Phaedon Tomazos, Hektor Karousos, Valina Gyftou and Karolina Angelopoulou — along with other Greek investors — that are occasionally participating personally/privately with minor shareholdings in Union’s Maritime investments."
Virono Union shares the same address in Athens' Paleo Faliro with not only Cass Technava but with Spring Marine, a low-profile and very acquisitive recent buyer of ships. Mortgage documents on file with Companies House specify that mortgage holder Piraeus Bank is to communicate with owners in care of Spring Marine.
The connection between Union Maritime and shareholders in the prominent Greek broking house precedes the new bulk ventures, as Fragkoudakis implied.
Technava co-founder Alek Tomazos was already a director in several vessel-owning subsidiaries of Union Maritime on the tanker side, including single-ship companies that own MR2 product tankers but also the Union Crude Carriers venture, which owns five of Union Maritime's aframaxes.
TradeWinds has previously reported on the Union Crude Carriers project, whose directors include Darren Maupin of private equity fund Pilgrim Global, and also Cass Technava's Tomazos.
