“I think like all marriages it started with a bit of dating,” said chief executive Bjorn Hojgaard. “You start looking at each other and you say, ‘I’m free tonight, how about a dinner?’ And it moves on from there. I think that’s how it started.”
Perhaps over coffee Hojgaard and Anglo Eastern chief Peter Cremers agreed a deal and two of the best-known names in the Hong Kong ship management sector tied the knot last week.
Cremers explains there were two incentives behind the merger. “The Univan shareholders hold similar views as we have that first class ship management has a place in shipping and we are there for the long term," Cremers said.
“On the management side the group becomes bigger and bigger and Mr Cremers gets older and older, so it was time to have a new and younger CEO in the company to bring the group forward. There was a meeting of minds at that level as well.”
The combined company has around 180 tankers, over 90 containerships and more than 40 offshore and specialist vessels in its fleet, alongside a large stable of bulkers.
On the newbuilding front there are 80 vessels already contracted, of which around one third are gas carriers.
“We have as a group a significant programme of ships coming in,” Hojgaard said when asked if jobs would be lost following the merger.
“We need people. This is not driven by trying to reduce the number of people involved in the business.”
Whether the deal will be followed by others to consolidate the market remains to be seen.
“Maybe, it may just force people to rethink what is happening,” Cremers said.
