Alternative capital group RMK Maritime is seeing "super-interesting" opportunities in the renewables and alternative fuel markets.
The New York and London-based company, which was co-founded 10 years ago by managing directors Michael Kirk and Richard Moore, has observed a shift towards new technologies among its shipowner clients.
Many are ordering vessels that are either LNG-powered or LNG-capable, according to Kirk.
"We're even seeing some people move into some of the newer technologies and at least start to think about some of those items," he told TradeWinds.
RMK has also set up Ascension Finance to provide first-lien loans for vessels, but renewables and alternative fuel investment are likely to fall more to the RMK side of the business.
Secondhand competition
"I think with Ascension, that's unlikely to be sort of an obvious financing source for us," Kirk said.
"I think we're much more competitive on assets that are 10-plus years old than we're going to be on a brand new eco ship," he added.
Kirk believes these new vessel types will be a big part of the market and will maintain RMK's focus on this.
"But Ascension is really focused on the traditional vessels that are on the water today," he added.
Moore explained that in terms of offshore wind farms, RMK has been helping an owner with the deployment of a support vessel.
"So we do have access to the market and we've been doing that for 12 years," he said.
The original deal for the newbuilding involved RMK arranging lease financing.
Not enough cover?
Moore called the wind market "super-interesting".
"But contracts aren't long on those sort of service vessels," he added.
"For the really big stuff, you can get long-term contracts, but then that's all secured against energy utility companies. So then you can access very, very cheap finance elsewhere — 2% type-margins," Moore said.
"But at the moment, you're not getting enough contract cover, and it's a little bit sporadic. And there's a lot of downtime on some of these ships," he added.
Kirk added that offshore wind is a big area of focus for the group, with more and more farms receiving authorisation in the US.
"It is an area that RMK rather than Ascension is spending time on," he said.
Asian focus
Moore explained that RMK arranges a lot of lease finance, predominantly out of Asia, for public and private companies.
"And again, I think over the last few years, it's been $1.5bn or so that we've arranged and that was very much focused on the latest engines, latest technology," the managing director said.
"We see, across the core of the group, all ends of the spectrum. So it's quite nice to see a total picture," he added.
Moore, who was previously a shipbroker and financier, and investment banker Kirk first met while sitting on opposite sides of a deal more than a decade ago.
They found they had similar views on life and formed RMK.
"We saw this gap in the market that was going to occur with traditional banks leaving," Kirk said.
The company has wider ambitions to become a broader asset-management business focused on the maritime space.
