When TradeWinds spoke to Jan Rindbo at the start of this year, the Norden chief executive said the company was on a mission to become more "trading oriented".

Seven months later, Norden has been through some radical structural changes and has posted two consecutive quarters of profit at levels not seen in years.

No one can say that Rindbo has not been busy.

"I do think we've come a long way in our transition to becoming a more trading-oriented company and that's why the deals that we are making, the changes that we have made, are also in alignment with that strategy," he told TradeWinds.

"I think we're starting to get the benefits of that, both in our results but also in the many things that we are doing."

This year, Norden has separated out its business units into separate divisions for operating tankers and bulkers, plus an asset management unit that looks after its owned vessels.

Then, in June, there was the merging of Diamond S Shipping's MR product tankers into Norden's Norient Product Pool, of which 25 of the 28 vessels have joined so far.

Last Wednesday, Norden announced its newest structural shake-up: its old technical division is being restructured as a 50:50 joint venture with Singapore-based shipmanagement firm Synergy Marine Group.

From Thursday, the joint venture — which will be known as Norden Synergy Technical Shipmanagement — will undertake technical management of Norden's 51 owned product tankers.

Asset trading

Rindbo told TradeWinds that the new venture will make it easier for Norden to make asset plays.

"Buying and selling ships, which is a core part of Norden's strategy, is easier to do because we don't have a sudden change in the number of owned vessels that will have a big impact on the technical organisation," he said.

Norden's second-quarter result

Norden recorded a net profit of $29m during the second quarter, compared to a loss of $8m at the same point last year.

The company said the quarterly result was achieved in "extremely volatile" markets and was mainly due to strong performance by its Tanker Operator unit and a positive result for its Asset Management operation.

The profit for the first half of 2020 was $57m, compared to a loss of $14m during the same period last year.

Norden has raised its guidance for its full-year result in light of better expectations for its Dry Operator business unit.

Its expectations for its full-year adjusted result has been raised to $40m to $80m, which is an increase on the previous range of $30m to $80m.

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"Now, with our partnership with Synergy, being part of a bigger technical organisation there, those changes are not felt as hard as they are when Norden is managing the entire fleet in-house."

Splitting off the business unit was not something that Norden did lightly, given that the division has long been part of its organisation. But Rindbo said the operation was "increasingly incompatible" with the company's strategy of trading assets.

"When you are running a large in-house technical organisation, you are using resources and support functions to do that," he said.

"Now, we have more resources that we can focus on the asset trading and the commercial activities that we have."

From 2021 onwards, the new venture will save Norden between $7m and $8m per year in costs related to "certain finance functions", which have been streamlined.

"The most valuable part [of the new venture] is the flexibility, having that commercial flexibility in buying and selling ships without having to think of maintaining a minimum of owned vessels to justify in-house technical management," he said.

"I think that's where the real value is for Norden."

Looking to the future, Rindbo thinks there are still many more things Norden can do on the digital side of things.

"We're putting a lot of focus on advanced analytics and predictive analytics in areas that can really help our two operator business units," he said.

Rare newbuilding orders

Norden is one of the few bulker owners that has ordered new vessels so far this year.

The company has ordered six 61,000-dwt ultramax bulkers from Nantong Cosco KHI Ship Engineering (Nacks) in China so far this year, all of which are for delivery in 2022.

"In the second quarter, when the dry cargo market was at distressed levels, we saw some good opportunities on these dry cargo assets and, having sold 10 vessels during 2018 and 2019, we saw that asset values on dry cargo ships have come down generally by 10% to 20%," Rindbo said of the orders.

"Therefore, we thought that this was the right time to buy in again, and this is very much aligned with our asset-trading mindset."

Two of the vessels have already been sold and leased back and similar deals could follow for the newbuildings or for other vessels in Norden's owned fleet, Rindbo said.

"We do not see ourselves necessarily as owners of these ships long term," he said. "In fact, we may even sell these newbuildings before they deliver.

"We're not necessarily seeing this as a long-term investment but more from a market-cyclical point of view that this is the right time to do this. Also we're noticing that the orderbook is at a 20-year low."

When placing the orders, Norden was not deterred by uncertainties around future environmental regulation, potential new fuel types and engine requirements.

"I think it will still take some time and I think that, generally speaking, the best solution for the industry is to find a fuel type that can be used on existing tonnage," he said.

"We have been testing biofuels on our own existing engines and therefore we still think that the ships of today are still part of the solution when we look into the future."