London welcomes the shipping world this week to its sixth biennial “open house”, where its extensive community of business services companies will be entertaining existing clients and trying to lure the new.
But when the empty bottles have been cleared and the PowerPoint presentations filed away, questions about London’s role and influence will remain.
The name says it all: London International Shipping Week — although some of those involved still suggest in private that the superfluous “international” reveals it is trying too hard.
With more than 300 events, receptions, seminars and conferences it has earned an established place in an industry globetrotter’s calendar of “must-do” events. And, after cautious beginnings, the UK government has now co-opted the week as a major platform to project its maritime programme and policies.
However, delve deeper into some of the fundamentals and there are plenty of reasons for London to be wary of heightening and more effective competition from rival cities.
From the London equity market being effectively shut to shipping, the absence of British banks funding shipowners, to the migration of business to centres in Asia and the Middle East, the City’s resources to provide a wide spread of business services to shipping have been eroded.
A decade ago, when the event was first launched, its role was in part to rebut the narrative that was gaining traction at the time that London was on course to lose its role as the great meeting point and deal-making hub for shipping worldwide.
In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the retreat of Western banks from shipping, and the industry’s debt burden, everyone was looking to Asia.
Then as now, that narrative was naive. London’s role as a haven of secure law, competitive broking, a common language and an amenable meeting point between East and West had remained as strong as ever. And it remains robust today.
Listen to the UK government and you will now hear an ambitious agenda of support for new green maritime technology and hope to revitalise the UK register after years in the doldrums.
That is all part of the woolly Global Britain concept dreamed up by former prime minister Boris Johnson as the nation’s strategic aim after the UK finally exited the European Union in 2020.
“I am profoundly optimistic about the UK’s place in the world ... enabling us to look forward with confidence as we shape the world of the future,” Johnson wrote with typical exuberance a year before his premiership collapsed in chaos, deceit and recrimination.
While the government’s more active support for maritime initiatives is welcome, its modest financial support reveals its limitations on a global stage.
Weakening grip
So much for policy, but where is the finance for shipping? Well, you would be wise not to try a listing on the London Stock Exchange. While Taylor Maritime is listed as a trust, and Tufton Oceanic is a specialist fund with some success, the market is a fraction of those in Oslo, New York and Tokyo.
The problem goes beyond shipping. One of Britain’s best-known fund managers Richard Buxton last month warned of the “very sorry state” of the UK equity market, which had “no natural investors”.
Banking is not much better, with no UK institution carrying a significant market impact today. But London — and British bankers — do remain in the leading ranks of influence-formers globally. Michael Parker at Citi, Paul Taylor at Societe Generale and Stephen Fewster at ING, to name three. All British, but all working for non-UK institutions.
It reflects the realities of London’s continued role as a centre for deal-making, just as other global shipping centres are acquiring their own specialisms to give them a unique edge.
Oslo remains a source of money, technology and know-how; Athens for shipowners; Tel Aviv for digital technology; Singapore for traders and a base for China; Shanghai for hardware and shipbuilding.
And there is a new big player in the scene — Dubai and the Emirates. Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine and retaliatory Western sanctions have done more to drive shipping business from Geneva and the days of the oligarchs’ “Londongrad” than the previous 20 years of tax breaks and promises of sunshine.
As one shipowner said when TradeWinds asked about London’s future status for shipbroking: “What’s London got to do with it? Broking is global.”
Unless the slogan “Global Britain” is given substance, London will continue to see its grip weaken.
