Former AP Moller-Maersk boss Nils Smedegaard Andersen is among the leading investors in Carsten Mortensen’s new ship owning venture.
Andersen’s Teix Partners is joined by shipowner Global United, the Laurtizen Foundation and other big names from the Danish business world investing alongside Mortensen and partner Frederick Lee in Dee4 Capital Partners.
As TradeWinds reported yesterday, Mortensen and his co-investors have secured $41m plus bank debt for a product tanker project, and expect to have $100m secured by the end of this year.
Filings with Danish regulators show Teix has between 5% and 10% of the project.
Andersen told Danish magazine Inside Business: “Naturally, when a completely new fund cannot show a track record or historical return itself, one must instead look at the individual people behind and their history.
"Here I have great confidence in Carsten Mortensen, whom I know from our common time in shipping, and I believe that he has the right experience with the market to be able to act sensibly regardless of the economic fluctuations.”
Global United has an interest of between 10% and 14.9%, while Danish footwear dynasty, the Ecco family, is also on board with an interest of the same size, according to public documents.
Jan Bech Andersen, the former president of Brondby Football Club, and Danish shipping investor the Lauritzen Foundation, were also named as shareholders by Denmark’s Inside Business magazine.
Hellerup real-estate, software, biotech firm LF Investments is also named as an investor.
Mortensen revealed yesterday the project had 18 shareholders, ranging from family offices to foundations and maritime professionals.
Mortensen told TradeWinds he was completely agnostic which commodity shipping segments the firm would target.
“The whole thought is we are looking for short-term dislocation for long-term benefit,” he said.
