Fast-growing New Orleans leasing giant Maritime Partners’ recent trend of acquisitions has extended to people.
The US Jones Act-focused firm has hired well-known ship finance lawyer Greg Chase to serve as its chief legal officer, the company confirmed this week in response to a query from TradeWinds.
Maritime Partners also disclosed in a statement that it had hired a chief financial officer, Stephen Bordes.
Chase spent nearly 11 years in the New York office of international firm Reed Smith, where he helped build and most recently was head of the maritime transactional team. Prior to that, he worked for more than 12 years on the staff of Watson Farley & Williams in international finance and corporate transactions.
“We’re excited to welcome Greg to the Maritime Partners team,” said Bick Brooks, co-founder and chief executive.
“His years advising on significant shipping transactions in private practice has given him significant knowledge and expertise in the maritime industry, and his years of experience working with MP as an outside lawyer makes him an excellent fit for our team.”
Chase said he was proud of his Reed Smith years and called the US transportation practice well-positioned for the future.
“I am excited for my new role,” Chase said. “I’m glad to be the latest addition to the MP team, and I look forward to working with this talented group for the continued growth of the business.”
Maritime Partners is coming off a red-hot 2023 in which it pulled off a trio of significant transactions.
In September, the company announced that one of its funds purchased US Marine Management (USMMI), the US-flagged tanker arm of shipping giant AP Moller-Maersk, in its second major tanker transaction in roughly a month.
In August, Maritime Partners’ Project Merchant Acquisition forged a deal to buy nine handysize product tankers and a shuttle tanker from Oslo-listed AMSC. All were on bareboat charter to Overseas Shipholding Group or Keystone Shipping.
Maritime Partners said the driving force behind the deals was the diversification of end markets, assets and counterparties.
The Louisiana company closed out that flurry of activity by locking up $600m in new financing as several subsidiaries of one of the funds it manages struck a deal with a syndicate of lenders led by Atlas Securitised Product Holdings for a warehouse facility, a form of financing used by mortgage lenders.
Maritime Partners said the financing was unrelated to the tanker acquisitions.
Further to its activity on the financial front, Maritime Partners is bringing in Bordes, who comes to the CFO role with more than 20 years of experience in finance and fund management. He had been CFO of New York-based American Industrial Partners, a middle-market private equity firm that invests in industrial businesses.
Bordes welcomed the opportunity to join what he called “a rapidly expanding platform”, adding “I look forward to all that we have on the horizon”.
