In a year when several high-profile equity analysts departed the sector, shipping is clawing one back.
Omar Nokta is returning to head shipping research for Clarksons Platou Securities after working for three years as an investment banker at the firm.
A veteran of previous stints with the former Dahlman Rose, Seaport Global Securities and then Clarksons Platou, Nokta told TradeWinds that he aims to fill a vacuum created by the departures of names like Fotis Giannakoulis, Magnus Fyhr and Michael Webber.
“We think that the market is underserved,” Nokta said. “For the past six months, the amount of actual expertise in the New York market has diminished.
“We don’t feel we have a strong enough presence in the US market, and we think there’s a tremendous opportunity for us and for investors in the next several years.”
Clarksons Platou currently has three Oslo-based analysts covering shipping names. Nokta said he will work in conjunction with Frode Morkedal, Erik Hovi and Henriette Vevstad, but will likely take the lead on most of the US-listed stocks.
“It will be a team effort,” he said.
Clarksons Platou chief executive Erik Helberg said he is glad to have Nokta back in the lead analyst’s chair. Helberg has been something of a mentor in that he, too, was an equity analyst before transitioning to head Clarksons Platou’s investment banking in shipping.
“Obviously I’m super excited about seeing Omar join the shipping family once again,” Helberg said.
“He has vast experience both in capital markets and the shipping industry and it’s great that he’s making the commitment now. It shows the commitment Clarksons has to the industry and the extent of our interest in the market in the coming years.”
Nokta’s return also may represent a bit of a psychological boost for the sector at large in a year when it has seemed unwanted by the investment community.
“What I’ve been seeing in the New York market these past months is somewhat bonkers,” Nokta said in relation to a succession of banks dropping some or all of their shipping coverage.
They include Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Seaport Global Securities, Maxim Group, Credit Suisse and UBS, while prominent Wells Fargo analyst Michael Webber elected to leave to pursue career ambitions.
“We’re married to shipping and we’re not ever leaving shipping — it’s in our DNA,” Nokta said. “Our competitors have been dropping coverage and analysts and that’s an opportunity for us.”
The timing is not specifically related to the upcoming IMO 2020 emissions deadline on 1 January and the expected boost to the market, but that is one factor in a broader positive view, he said.
“I don’t want to say it’s a run-up to IMO 2020 because it’s more about how we see the market in 2020 and afterward,” he said.
“It’s partially that, but there’s a lot more that we feel is driving it: continued growth, limited capital investment, substantial vessel dislocations, expanding trade routes and more complex trading patterns.”
It has been onward and upward for Nokta ever since he came on the shipping scene as a young intern for upstart boutique bank Dahlman Rose in 2004.
He quickly assumed the equity analyst role as Dahlman Rose hustled its way into a supporting place on the record number of shipping IPOs in 2005. His role grew as activity continued to build in capital markets in the following years.
Nokta left Dahlman Rose in 2013 to head equity research at Seaport Global Securities. After a year, he jumped to Clarksons Platou.
As TradeWinds reported, Nokta chose to switch to the investment banking side of the business in 2016. But for 18 months, he split his time between shipping and the mining sector. For the past 18 months, he focused exclusively on mining.
Nokta said in a 2016 interview that he looked forward to banking because, ironically, it would afford him the time to finally do analysis — something that proved elusive during his hectic schedule as an analyst.
Nokta acknowledged this week that he took some stick from his banking colleagues over the remark, and found out the hard way that an investment banker’s schedule presents its own challenges.
“As soon as I started to become busy, it got hectic,” he said, laughing at the memory.
“I gained 25 pounds in the last three years because of the limited structure a banker has in his daily life. You may be flying somewhere on short notice, you’re running all over the place, and you are more at the whim of your corporate clients as opposed to being a research analyst.”
Nokta said he is proud of his work in establishing Clarksons Platou’s banking presence in mining. Yet he repeated a refrain that is all too common among those who have spent some time away from shipping.
“On a personal level, I also miss shipping,” he said. “I’ve heard the same sort of thing from many investors: even if you’ve been walloped by a shipping investment, you always go back.
“A lot of times your first go-round doesn’t work out so well, but you’ve gotten the bug and you go back.”
