John Fredriksen’s Seatankers Group has appointed finance and shipping veteran Tor A Svelland as its new chief executive.
Svelland, currently CEO of hedge fund Svelland Capital, joins the shipowning group with immediate effect.
TradeWinds is told this is a new position, although it follows the departure of key executive Harald Thorstein in last autumn.
Marius Hermansen is the group chief operating officer.
Svelland has already joined the board of both Golden Ocean Group and Frontline.
Fredriksen said: “We are very pleased to get Tor A Svelland on board. His vast and long experience as a manager and trader from various commodity markets, finance and not least shipping, will fit perfectly into our group.”
Svelland said he is proud to take on the new role at Seatankers, which is the main private company in Fredriksen's shipping empire.
“After all, John Fredriksen is the greatest industrial entrepreneur Norway has ever had,” Svelland said.
The executive, who is also chief investment officer at London-based Svelland Capital, has 30 years of experience from the commodities, finance and shipping sectors.
He set up Svelland Capital in 2016 as an investment firm that, according to his LinkedIn profile, focused on returns from "rigorous fundamental research and executed by taking positions across a mix of equity, freight forward agreements and iron ore and crude oil futures".
Before that, he spent two years as a desk manager at trading giant Trafigura.
Svelland also spent four years as an executive director at Goldman Sachs, and he was head of commodities at Pareto Securities for about 17 months.
His CV also includes stints as head of freight derivatives at Carnegie, a chartering manager at shipowners Torvald Klaveness and Kibs AS Karlander, and a shipbroker in Greece for Bery Maritime.
Eric Martin contributed to this story.
