Swiss brokerage Ifchor has hired away the Shanghai boss of Braemar ACM and are building up a new sale and purchase team in Lausanne, Athens and China.
Meanwhile, the company is opening a Dubai dry cargo chartering desk under the name Ifchor Middle East.
In an announcement, the company confirmed TradeWinds' report earlier today that former Braemar ACM broker George Eliades and Ifchor veteran Tiziano Paravagna will serve as directors of the new S&P operation, respectively from Athens and Lausanne.
Paravagna currently leads a three-person S&P team at the company's home base, while China veteran Eliades is putting together Greek and Chinese teams in S&P and newbuilding.
Eliades headed ACM in Shanghai and then the merged Braemar ACM but left the latter last year to return to Greece for a gardening leave, keeping his plans under wraps until starting for Ifchor this week.
Eliades declines to identify the brokers who have already been contracted for Athens and China offices, but says new staff are set to start work by the beginning of March.
Lausanne-based Paravagna is also an independent board director of the Akis Tsirigakis and George Syllantavos blank cheque company Stellar Acquisitions III.
In an announcement, Ifchor CEO Emanuele Ravano said he was delighted Eliades had joined Ifchor. "He has a very dynamic approach and I am confident that he will add tremendous value to our S&P services," said Ravano.
Ifchor is a major player in dry chartering, reportedly the world's fourth largest, but has smaller operations in tanker chartering, S&P, and finance. Its boss recently told TradeWinds he believes in the value of integrating the separate branches of his business, and said his aim in S&P is to have a good boutique shop with a specific angle on certain market sectors.
“Clients’ feedback has been great because there are many synergies on what you do with chartering and S&P,” Ravano said in the last number of the quarterly TW+ magazine supplement.
The Dubai operation that was also announced today will be headed by Yehia Ghazzawi, a former competitive shipbroker and then head of the global dry bulk freight portfolio for ETG Agro. Ifchor says Ghazzawi will manage a team of three to four brokers to start with.
Ravano says the new office, Ifchor's first ever in the Middle East, will provide services including physical freight broking, freight strategy and risk management, and projects consultancy, serving as a platform for Ifchor to expand in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) area.
