Until recently, Norway's OSM was the ship manager that made the most headlines for taking over the management of Frontline and Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Skipsrederi.
But in September, it broke its streak, losing a bidding war against India's Synergy Marine for the management of the Maersk Tankers fleet, despite the backing of aggressive US private equity firm Oaktree Capital Management, which is its 49% shareholder.
Today, chief executive Finn Amund Norbye emphasises organic growth as OSM’s preferred but not exclusive goal.
"Over the past two years, we have been approached by customers who wanted OSM to take over their entire ship-management organisations," he said.
"We responded positively, as these were all high-quality companies with high-quality employees and customers. And today we see a very positive impact on OSM, which in turn supports all our existing customers with stronger performance."
Norbye thinks it is important that managers and their customers have matching goals.
"As we are focused on transparency and good ethical standards, it is key for us that there is a good cultural fit between OSM and potential future takeover candidates," he said.
"Being the largest Norwegian-controlled ship management company ... we see that opportunities exist to support high-quality shipowners, who are looking for the next natural step for their in-house or existing third-party operations.
"We shall therefore look positively on new takeover opportunities, however at the same time not lose sight of organic growth, stability in the organisation and delivering solid performance for our existing customers."
But one of OSM's competitors, Bjorn Hojgaard, put the alternative more bluntly. Would his Anglo-Eastern be disappointed if it were overtaken in fleet size by a competitor less focused on organic growth?
"It wouldn’t bother me at all," Hojgaard replied. "Scale for sure matters in ship management and we are happy to have adequate volume, which can be leveraged to the advantage of every ship and client.
"But size is not a measure of success in itself. Being a true sounding board to our shipowner partners and helping them be successful through what we do as ship manager and technical advisor is ultimately our purpose."
Manager | Fleet size (1) | Last large acquisition | Detention rate (three years of PSC inspection) |
1. Anglo-Eastern Ship Management | 657 | 2015: Univan (105 ships) | 0.5% |
2. Fleet Management | 591 | None known | 0.6% |
3. V.Ships | 564 | 2018: Norddeutsche Reederei (50 ships) | 1.2% |
4. Synergy Marine | 434 (= 352 + 82) (2) | 2021: Maersk Tankers (82 ships) | 1.2%, 0.7% (2) |
5. Bernhard Schulte Ship Management | 408 | 2008: Merger of four Schulte companies | 1.5% |
(1): Ships under full technical management according to Equasis; Equasis listings normally involve some delay and most managers say actual totals are larger. (2): Totals for Synergy record pre-Maersk Tankers and Maersk Tankers sums separately. |
