A private equity backer that TradeWinds understands to be US computer billionaire Michael Dell is looking to make large maritime investments and has picked up a familiar shipping name to bring him projects.
Singapore-based Scotsman Keith Denholm has taken on the job as chief executive of Caledonia Maritime Services after spending a year as Singapore managing director for Norwegian broking house Lorentzen & Stemoco (L&S).
TradeWinds understands the move follows the expiration of non-competition agreements with Denholm's previous employer, Castleton Commodities International.
Caledonia, currently under the leadership of James Russell Walling in Stamford, will now go from a dry bulk operator to primarily a maritime investment project on behalf of what Denholm described as "a very strong New York-based private equity fund".
Dry bulk is not my focus now. My focus is to provide the unicorn for my private equity backers
Other sources have connected Caledonia with Dell's fund, MSD Capital.
Speaking from Vienna, where he addressed this year's Carbon Forum on the subject of scrubbers, Denholm told TradeWinds: "Dry bulk is not my focus now. My focus is to provide the unicorn for my private equity backers. These are people who hate publicity with a passion, but they have a large amount of cash to deploy in the maritime sector — and it's got a 'b' in front of it, not an 'm'."
Dell is not new to shipping. He was previously a major investor in New York-listed LPG carrier owner StealthGas.
Denholm said he is currently competing with Chinese leasing houses for his first deal at Caledonia, a "vanilla" sale-and-leaseback transaction involving four ships within a single tonnage class. The deal involves a pure bareboat charter back to the seller. Caledonia would not be involved on the commercial side.
"The Chinese are in the bidding, too, but with much more complicated structures," he said.
But Denholm underscored that he is on the lookout for maritime assets, not just ships and not even especially bulkers.
Dry bulk focused
"I am looking at a first deal in dry bulk because that's where I came from," he said. "But it could be gas; it could be tankers — anything maritime. It could be a fleet of containers. Right now, I am looking at a possible terminal project in the US, which right now is just an acreage that could be developed into anything."
Caledonia has been in operation for more than a year as a dry bulk operator. It currently has about 10 chartered ships from handysize to panamax, two of them on one-year charters and the rest under shorter arrangements, all from blue-chip owners. The ships are active carrying cargoes for customers with whom Denholm and his Caledonia colleagues have long relationships.
In October 2017, when Denholm returned from the US to his long-term base of Singapore to take over the L&S branch there, it had just been hit by a mass defection of its dry chartering team with the departure of seven Shanghai and Singapore staff members to Norwegian rival Grieg Shipbrokers.
But even taking on a brokerage in good health would have been an unexpected twist in a career trajectory that has seen Denholm on the owner's side, running the dry bulk fleet for a series of sometimes demanding personalities.
A decade previously, he had worked in the New York area as commercial director at Eagle Bulk Shipping and then moved on to head global freight trading at Louis Dreyfus Highbridge Energy, which later became Castleton.
Before that, he had been a fixture of the Singapore shipping scene as commercial director of the Kuok Group's Pacific Carriers Ltd and Malaysian Bulk Carriers. He remains a shareholder and director in family company J&J Denholm, whose current portfolio includes two handysize vessels plus shipping service companies.
During his year at L&S, a rumour connected Denholm with the bidding for a fleet of 13 ultramax newbuildings from Oldendorff Carriers but that deal fell through.
"At L&S, I did bits and bobs," he said. "I paid for myself. And I rebuilt their dry bulk chartering team. They now have a very focused capesize and panamax desk with five experienced brokers."
