Alexander Saverys has been no stranger to headlines in the past couple of years as his family went toe-to-toe with John Fredriksen for ownership of Euronav.
An 18-month takeover battle was resolved late last year as Fredriksen walked away with 24 vessels in the largest sale-and-purchase deal in VLCC market history.
On stage at the TradeWinds Shipowners Forum at Posidonia, Saverys faced the question on everyone’s lips from TradeWinds editor-in-chief Julian Bray. Who won?
“It was not about winning, Julian,” Saverys said during a panel discussion.
“It was about finding a solution where everybody found what, eventually, he wanted.
“John wanted the ships, we wanted the company and I think we found an agreement. It lasted way too long, as you know. But eventually, we found a solution.”
Saverys has since been evolving Euronav away from being a tanker pure-play and into a diversified company and in the family’s mind the only investible green shipping platform in the industry.
Despite that lofty tag, Saverys admitted that he and his family have some work to do to convince investors of the message.
“People know our story as well,” he said. “Whether it’s our suppliers or our customers, our banks.
“The one breed of people we have not been able to convince yet, even though our stock has been trading nicely in recent weeks, is our investors.
“We are going to use the second half of the year to talk less in the newspapers and more one-on-one with our investors, to feel if all the positive signals we felt over the last year and a half about this energy transition — if there is real investment behind it.
“When you speak to investors, sometimes they tell you a story [but] they don’t follow through. Symbolically we are kicking off on 2 July with the name change [from Euronav to CMB.Tech].”
With the free-float shrinking and investors not yet convinced of the story, there have been rumours the Saverys family will take the company private.
Again Saverys was asked directly on the stage: “Do you intend to take it private, soon?”
“For the moment, not,” he told the forum.
