The managing partners of London-based Maritime Asset Partners (MAP) think having shipping industry participants as shareholders has a number of practical advantages for their competitiveness when investing in the sector.
Those include the ability of a shareholder's meeting to understand the deals being proposed.
But another key advantage is the speed with which the deals can be evaluated and approved.
Business partners Oscar Ulstein and Ivan Dyrtchenko told TradeWinds that this sets them apart from other players such as the Chinese leasing houses.
"We have a sort of annual tradition [during the two years] now that we close deals between Christmas and New Year that were proposed in the beginning of December," Dyrtchenko said.
In 2018, TradeWinds reported that MAP's initial backers included Kuwait's Wafra Capital Partners plus Norwegian shipowners and ship financiers Arne Blystad, Birger and Alex Nergaard, Paal and Jannicke Utvik, and chairman Axel Stove Lorentzen. The shareholding has not changed since then.
Shipowner shareholders are also able to recommend peers as potential clients.
“We source transactions through different avenues and if our shareholders see transactions that can be relevant, they bring them to us,” Dyrtchenko said.
The boardroom route to deal-sourcing may have played a role in a series of financings with Bergen’s Champion Tankers and its Espen Galtung Dosvig-controlled financial partner, EGD Holding.
Champion Tankers and EGD Holding’s ships have been in and out of the MAP portfolio thanks to a rising market that allowed the clients to declare purchase options and refinance, with profitable results for both sides.
But alternative finance shop MAP casts its net wider than Norway.
MAP’s non-Norwegian shareholder — Fawaz Al-Mubaraki-led Wafra — is a subsidiary of Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund.
Wafra had shipping investments prior to MAP, including four Euronav VLCCs that it picked up in December 2016 in a five-year sale-and-leaseback deal at a reported price of $186m.
The understanding is that Wafra’s future shipping investments will be done through its participation in MAP.
