Two years before teaming up with Cruise Management International (CMI) in 2017, Jim Barreiro de Leon had moved from V.Ships Leisure USA to Florida's Ship Supply.
During that time, he was approached by CMI chairman Niels-Erik Lund, also president and chief executive of SunStone Ships, who he had met over the years inspecting vessels and pitching for business.
Barreiro joined after what appears to have been a bleak period at the former company, International Shipping Partners (ISP).
In 2012, ISP had been acquired, along with Europe’s River Advice, by Dutch group Waterland Private Equity and bundled into a new holding company, FleetPro Passenger Ship Management.
At the time, ISP managed 20 vessels, including 16 cruiseships, while River Advice had 35 river cruisers under management.
Commercial freedom
Lund remained a shareholder at ISP. But it was agreed that, while remaining at the helm of ISP, he had the freedom to develop commercial management for buying, selling and chartering secondhand cruiseships, as Waterland was not interested in asset play.
So, instead of cashing in his chips and moving towards a quiet retirement, Lund formed SunStone, responsible for what was then referred to as Project Unlimited that was focused on ordering several expedition cruise vessels.
Long-term associate Ken Engstrom became executive vice president of SunStone and took the helm at CMI when it was formed in 2015, as FleetPro exited the ocean business and transferred technical management of its 10 deepsea vessels to CMI.
Hotel-management arm FleetPro Leisure was also sold to Lund’s group of Danish investors and renamed CMI Leisure.
“Ken did a tremendous job coming out of the FleetPro situation, re-established a lot of the things that were in place when the company was ISP and basically asked me to prepare the company for the future,” Barreiro says. “Not only growth of the fleet that was coming but also to look at systems, a lot of things that disappeared in the FleetPro era.
“I was fortunate not to have lived through that FleetPro period.”
It took Lund and Engstrom time to regroup and reorganise, and Barreiro says CMI now mirrors the way ISP used to be set up.
