V.Group believes it has plenty of room to make progress by growing its own businesses in uncertain times, without necessarily going out and buying other operations.
The major ship manager and marine services company is being taken over by a consortium comprising Star Capital and Ackermans & van Harren that is promising new investment.
V.Group chief executive Rene Kofod-Olsen told TradeWinds: “We definitely see further growth aspirations. As a matter of fact, we think that we’re just getting started.”
He explained how at the Posidonia shipping gathering in Greece last week he was approached by people telling him that outsourcing of shipping services has to grow, because “the complexities are just almost overwhelming for smaller and mid-size companies”.
Only about 16% of shipping services are outsourced today, Kofod-Olsen believes.
“We see it continuously growing as you have all this dislocation in shipping,” he added.
“We think there are a lot of clients out there who have not necessarily used outsourcing services and we believe that we can play with them, and we want the whole outsourcing part of shipping to grow.
“The consortium has completely invested into the long-term strategy for the company.
“They will come in and continue helping us deliver that and we really look forward to it. So we will invest in both divisions,” Kofod-Olsen said.
Decarbonisation is also an important area of growth. V.Group has been retrofitting vessels to comply with emissions regulations.
Doing the basics right
“We see that as one of the aspects on our clients’ minds and we will invest in a lot of that,” Kofod-Olsen said.
Digitalisation will also be accelerated. “But frankly, where we will invest the most is just to deliver quality ship management to our clients. That’s really what we want to do every single day with our seafarers and our people on the ground,” he added.
Last year, V.Group started to make good on promises to expand its business with a deal to acquire Belships’ in-house operation.
The Oslo-listed bulker owner said it sold 100% of Belships Management (Singapore), a technical and crew management company established in 1983.
The division manages Belships’ bulkers and vessels for other international clients.
And V.Group also said it was teaming up with carbon trading company Aither.
The partnership is designed to facilitate trading of carbon credits for the EU Emissions Trading System.
Focus on organic expansion
But Kofod-Olsen said: “Our strategy is organic. We have never shied away from looking at acquisition opportunities and we also did that last year. But predominantly our strategy is organic. We think that there is a lot of white space for all ship managers of quality.”
He said it was a big positive having a consortium come in and say shipping is a very interesting market and that they understand the strategy and want to invest.
“If you look at some of our competitors in the industry, they’re also owned by investors and they must have had the same view. And so I think it’s good for shipping. I think it’s good for ship management,” Kofod-Olsen told TradeWinds.
“So as long we have people investing in us that want to support that and for the right reasons, that is what matters,” he added.
“I’m obviously very humbled by it. And we will now have an opportunity to continue uninterrupted to develop and implement the strategy that we have promised our clients,” Kofod-Olsen said.
The V.Group fleet now numbers about 3,500 vessels between the management and marine services divisions.
Nearly 1,000 of these have technical and crew management contracts in place.
In 2020, V.Group signed a deal with Greece’s Costamare to manage 41 vessels and take over the boxship owner’s management company in China.
As part of the move, Shanghai Costamare Ship Management was integrated into V.Group’s office in Shanghai.
In 2019, V.Group took over the fleet of Norddeutsche Reederei H Schuldt in Germany.
