A “fun-filled business life” is how troubleshooter Trevor Fairhurst describes his half-century in the maritime industry — most of it spent grabbing ships on the high seas.
At the age of 73, the effusive Fairhurst, known affectionately by those whose ships are safe in harbour as humorous and intuitively politically incorrect, has decided to weigh anchor and head for retirement.
But the founder and managing director of Fairwind Shipping is not leaving without recounting some of the hair-raising events arising from the repossession of hundreds of vessels, mainly on behalf of banks.
Fairwind was acquired in 2002 by J&J Denholm, whose chairman, John Denholm, hosted a retirement dinner for Fairhurst at the Royal Thames Yacht Club in London’s Knightsbridge district last week.
Gathered around the table were members of Fairhurst’s family, including wife Nicky, sons William and Tom, and daughter Annie, who heard testimony from brokers, lawyers and others to the septuagenarian’s unique style and personality.
Huge network of contacts
A select group of 25 people were in attendance, although Fairhurst could probably have filled the nearby Royal Albert Hall, given his huge network of contacts.
One guest described him as one of the most important people on the London shipping scene in the past 40 years.
“Everybody knows Trevor. The great thing about London is community and you have been a central spider in the middle of that web. You achieved huge contacts which none of us have aspired to,” the guest added.
Much of Fairhurst’s career was spent, by his own admission, lunching with bankers discussing ship seizures while his sidekicks got on with the dirty work.
Fairhurst arrived in the City of London in 1963, working as a banker for Coutts & Co. Three years later, he became an operations assistant at tweendecker specialist Hain-Nourse, one of 136 separate companies that once comprised the mighty P&O. He went on to become a director of P&O Bulk Shipping.
In 1979, he joined Cast, where he operated the company’s combination carrier fleet.
But when Cast had to be rescued from bankruptcy in 1982 and its 17 vessels faced arrest, Fairhurst persuaded the Royal Bank of Canada and the Bank of Montreal to take possession as mortgagees, resulting in what was hailed at the time as a “Canadian solution” for the fleet.
The vessels, all managed by Denholm Ship Management, continued to trade before being sold on. Fairhurst’s future career as a troubleshooter was decided and Fairwind opened its doors in 1983.
According to John Denholm, it could be argued that the Cast saga changed the strategy of banks.
“I think that was a groundbreaking deal and you [Fairhurst] should be justifiably proud of it,” Denholm said to loud applause.
Fairhurst said life has been so busy that he has lost count of the number of ships handled for lenders. His best “guesstimate” is just short of 600, either selling or trading on — everything from chemical tankers, VLCCs and bulkers to fish freezer vessels. Also in the mix were two or three “nice yachts”, including the judicial sale of Panagis Zissimatos’ Princess of Adriatic.
Fairwind and its teams round the world handled the recovery, on behalf of US bondholders, of 54 Adriatic Tankers vessels following the Zissimatos company’s collapse. The American lenders, mainly pension companies, made their presence felt in late summer 1995, Adriatic’s ships were gradually located, and “we sent the lads in to recover them”, Fairhurst said. “The lads were more accustomed to climbing anchor chains in the middle of the night than I was.”
Those “lads” were involved in “the Battle of Assos Bay”, named after one of three Adriatic Tankers VLCCs lying in international waters off Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates.
“We managed to get control of them, change the crews, and then they were attacked,” Fairhurst recalled. “Zissimatos said we had stolen them and sent a number of salvage tugs after us.
“We vanquished them fairly comfortably and managed to sell all three [VLCCs] on the high seas to a scrap buyer.”
Firstly, it is unusual to deliver ships on the high seas due to lack of jurisdiction. Secondly, said Fairhurst, it set a world record at the time as the largest scrap deal in terms of lightweight — around 116,000 ldt in total.
Another memorable moment was recovering the Princess of Adriatic after Fairhurst had placed an advert in TradeWinds offering a $100,000 reward for information on the yacht’s whereabouts.
It worked: the 47-metre vessel, with wood-panelled lounges and a dining room with floor-to-ceiling mirrors, was located in the Black Sea near Constanta.
“There was a bit of a fight onboard,” claimed Fairhurst, who recruited for the job a couple of locals — personnel from former Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s special forces. Although no one was hurt, his lawyer had to jump overboard and in the scuffle an AK-47 rifle was inadvertently discharged through the yacht’s glass canopy when one of the Syrian crew members fell over.
The yacht was “hot-wired” and when the twin diesel engines finally kicked into life, it sounded “like a bomb going off”, Fairhurst said.
‘Fun and games’
The Princess of Adriatic was taken back to the UK despite “fun and games” en route as the owner sought to repossess it. But as it entered the River Fal in south-west England, a wave broke over the stern and water rushed through the shattered glass canopy. The vessel had to be towed on the final leg.
When Denholm acquired Fairwind, Fairhurst and business partner Jean Richards moved across. Richards left after a couple of years.
Fairhurst is bowing out at a time when the banks have stopped using “buccaneers like me”. Instead, they prefer to sell non-performing loans to hedge funds, albeit at an “enormous” discount — “probably cheaper than using me”.
The red wine lover, who was presented with a pair of claret jugs at the dinner, added that after a life of “learning to live without sleep”, he has taken over as director of his village community shop.
There will be no shortage of activities to occupy him during retirement in his West Sussex village but “I haven’t got round to driving the bus for the elderly yet”, he quipped.
