Harald Moraeus-Hanssen holds a diversified fleet after pivot from box to offshore

Oslo finance man and shipowner Harald Moraeus-Hanssen has built up a diverse fleet in his Uthalden Maritime, calling market troughs and peaks to generate and reinvest substantial profits, not least in container ships.

But right now he is moving his physical portfolio towards offshore oil services, where he believes asset values still do not reflect the expected demand.

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Primarily a financial investor, he is part of an Oslo milieu that prides itself on moving quickly between sectors, and his company’s name is to be found high up on shareholder lists of Oslo-listed shipping, offshore, property and other public companies.

“I have a relaxed attitude to investing in securities or in physical assets,” he told TradeWinds.

“And while most of shipping has been at an all-time high over the past five years, we are still pretty close to all-time lows in offshore services, both in physical assets and in shares.”

Right now his ship-holding vehicle Uthalden Maritime physically controls container ships, bulkers, tankers and car carrier tonnage along with platform supply vessels and two large rigs and drillships picked up last year at knock-down bargains.

Moraeus-Hanssen declined to comment on the current proportion of his physical to financial shipping holdings.

“I have basically always had my focus on the financial markets, but there comes a time when steel is underpriced,” he said, offering the example of US-listed drilling giant Transocean, whose share is dominated by big US funds that are “not always very particular about the share price”.

The result can be that it costs $450m to own a drillship as a shareholder, but $200m as a shipowner. And at a time when Moraeus-Hanssen and friends and co-investors including Petter Stordalen, Torstein Tvenge and Oystein Stray Spetalen are bullish about recovery in oil and gas, that is an irresistible attraction.

Moraeus-Hanssen made headlines last year for the $55m purchase of the 25,500-dwt semi-submersible rig SSV Catarina (built 2010) along with Spetalen. And more recently for that of the dormant Samsung Heavy Industries drillship West Dorado (to be delivered 2023 as Dorado) along with Gunnar Hvammen and Stordalen at a price reported by Oslo business daily Finansavisen as something over $200m. In each case, they paid a fraction of the price to build and finance the assets.

Could offshore demand bring asset values back to something like replacement value?

“There’s no law against hoping so,” Moraeus-Hanssen said.

He has also picked up two large secondhand PSVs from Norwegian owners, most recently Solstad Offshore’s 4,300-dwt HM Flipper (ex-Normand Flipper, built 2003).

Not just offshore

But his attention has not turned exclusively to offshore.

Uthalden Maritime’s fleet of merchant ships continues to grow, most recently with an unreported order last summer for two all-stainless chemical carriers from Japan’s Fukuoka Shipbuilding, which TradeWinds has separately reported.

Moraeus-Hanssen is positive to “practically all tank segments”, although after the sale last year of the 68,524-dwt product tanker Danubia (renamed Ashley, built 2004) he is only exposed to chemical tankers.

In dry bulk, Uthalden Maritime controls a supramax and a capesize in addition to two ultramax newbuildings he ordered together with Oystein Boe, including the ship Moraeus-Hanssen considers to be the one that made him an actual shipowner, the 63,500-dwt MH Oslo (built 2023).

Uthalden Maritime also controls a majority share of a car carrier, the 4,870-ceu Monza (built 2008). “Only one, unfortunately,” he said.

And despite the slump in the container shipping market, Uthalden Maritime still manages to generate profits there, as with the recent sale of the 3,400-teu Rio Centaurus (built 2010).

Oslo-listed MPC Container Ships recently disclosed that it had purchased two ships, the Rio Centaurus and Wilbur Ross’ 2,800-teu TRF Kaya (built 2007), for a combined $33.9m, a fraction of their peak price last year but still up from the time they were purchased.

By the count of Finansavisen, based on publicly available company records, Uthalden Maritime’s container ship sales before the Rio Centaurus represented some NOK 580m in asset-play profits, apart from chartering income.

Moraeus-Hanssen declined an invitation to boast about the timing of his boxship sales.

“Almost no matter what sector of shipping, whether in securities or in steel, has made money over the past five years,” said the former Fearnley Securities boss in a recent interview with TradeWinds at ice hockey supporter hangout Valerenga Vertshus.

Moraeus-Hanssen, as largest shareholder in the associated Valerenga hockey team, is chairman of the board of the pub, although not to TradeWinds’ knowledge a regular here.