More detail has emerged on the cuts being made to Western Bulk Chartering’s global workforce.
Torbjorn Gjervik, who started as CEO on 1 September after 13 years with the bulker operator, confirmed to TradeWinds that 12 to 16 jobs will be lost worldwide.
Of these, six to eight positions will be cut from the Oslo headquarters.
Egil Husby is departing from his role as chief strategy & transformation officer.
Husby has worked for Western Bulk for close to 18 years and was chief risk officer for almost 13 of those years.
Gjervik told TradeWinds: “It’s true that Egil and us have parted ways.
“Egil has been instrumental in building Western Bulk to what it is today, a leading global dry bulk operator, so we thank him for his excellent work.”
Alan Curran has also departed as the firm’s general counsel in Oslo.
Henrik Synnes has been named head of the Pacific & US West Coast team in Singapore, succeeding Magnus Hansen, who leaves after more than five years.
As well as Oslo and Singapore, Western Bulk has offices in Seattle, Santiago and Dubai.
TradeWinds broke the news on Tuesday that the company was planning to cut a “significant” number of jobs to streamline its organisation.
Gjervik said on Tuesday that the redundancies are necessary for Western Bulk to be the best bulker operator in the market.
“To be a winner in this highly competitive dry bulk operator world we need to be among the sharpest when it comes to our culture, customer focus, systems, brand, cash and cost base,” he said.
“Following this focus, we have recently been working on reducing our cost base through optimising and streamlining the organisation, which unfortunately has led to some of our employees being made or will be made redundant.”
He said it is too early to say how exactly many jobs will be lost.
The redundancies are Gjervik’s first big move since starting as CEO, having worked his way up from his entry as a trainee 13 years ago.
In an interview with TradeWinds in late August, he said he wanted to spend his first six months in the role focusing on Western Bulk’s current organisation.
He promised big changes at the operator, which could include diversifying away from its core business of operating bulk carriers.
Western Bulk’s operated fleet typically numbers 140 to 150 bulkers across mainly supramaxes and ultramaxes, plus handysizes and panamaxes.
It re-entered the panamax segment last year and is closing in on a fleet of 20 such vessels.
This increased Western Bulk’s overall operated fleet from 126 vessels to 141 during the first half of this year.
