NorthStandard, shipping’s second-largest P&I mutual after a merger earlier this year, is busy integrating its previously separate operations in Greece, the biggest shipowning hub in the world.
Managing directors Jeremy Grose and Paul Jennings, previously heads of standalone North P&I and the Standard Club, arrived in Athens earlier this month to celebrate the two companies’ marriage and help push it forward in the local market.
They entertained the club’s enlarged Greek clientele at Island, a traditional seaside gig venue for maritime companies on the Athens Riviera.
“Greece is different. It’s the best market in the world, the crucible where everything happens,” NorthStandard’s head of Greece Gordon Robertson told TradeWinds in an interview in the company’s Piraeus office.
The sheer concentration of owners in Greece makes it easier to try out innovative ideas of what a P&I club can do for members, Robertson argued.
The choice of principals to bounce potential ideas off has just got much bigger.
Greece had been the single biggest national market for North and Standard before their merger and this is naturally replicated in the new, larger entity.
According to the latest NorthStandard annual report, Greece accounted for 20% of owned and 2% of chartered tonnage under the club’s P&I insurance coverage, or 53.2m gt in total.
Figures published in North’s and Standard’s last separate reports for 2022 suggest that North has contributed the bigger part of the joint Greek portfolio.
No ruffled feathers
Three out of 10 members of the joint company’s board of directors are Greek, including both vice chairs — Ioanna Procopiou of Sea Traders and Nicolas Hadjioannou of Alassia Holdings.
At members’ board level, 11 out of a total of 63 seats are filled by Greeks.
Apart from the Procopiou clan, members include Nikolas Tsakos, Stefanos Kollakis, Vassilis Dalacouras, George Moundreas, Dimitris Marinos and Takis Vellis.
According to Robertson, post-merger feedback among Greek members has been “very positive, with lots of interest in what the future will hold”.
A major Greek shipowner contacted by TradeWinds broadly confirms the impression that the merger has ruffled no feathers so far.
“Although it’s early days, we have experienced no negative concerns by the merger,” the owner said. “It’s been business as usual.”
The merger rationale of offering a wider range of products, riding out volatile markets better and allowing cost savings on the reinsurance and finance front, still generally holds.
That includes advice and awareness-raising initiatives such as a roundtable on Russia sanctions last month attended by several Greek shipowners and members of the US administration.
“I think the combined offices in Greece will be positive,” the owner said.
However, the challenge of welding different cultures and structures is still on clients’ minds.
“I’m waiting to see whose style will prevail, especially on FD&D [freight, demurrage and defence],” the Greek shipowner said.
Internal coordination to pick and develop the best common strategies and products is a work in progress at the merged entity.
One key change has been a shift to a more geography-focused structure.
“This is a big change for many of us internally and is an equally big change for some of our members, with everything now focused on the needs of our key geographical sectors,” Robertson said.
More mundane integration work is also still ongoing.
NorthStandard maintains two separate offices in Greece — North’s in Piraeus and Standard’s in the suburb of Vouliagmeni — for the moment.
The plan is to eventually bring everyone together in Piraeus, which is more spacious and has better transport links, both for current personnel and others the firm will hire in the future.
“It’s not just about what we have at the moment but also the business and the people we want to have in the future,” Robertson said.
