John Michael Radziwill, who has just filed for an initial public offering of his venture GoodBulk, is not shy about displaying his bullishness on dry bulk, not to mention the capesize sector.
“Now is the time to be greedy,” Radziwill told the TradeWinds Shipowners Forum at Posidonia. “Grab the last cent out of it — come on, guys, it’s been 10 years [of lean markets].”
His view on improving markets rests on the emergence of new coal trades, and iron ore routes performing better than expected.
He does not even expect a growing orderbook for valemaxes and VLOCs to spoil the market. “Valemaxes don’t carry coal from Baltimore to India. It’s purely an iron ore trade,” he said.
Radziwill also pointed out that 51 VLOCs are older than 20 years and will eventually have to be scrapped — exactly the number of newbuilding valemaxes expected to hit the water by 2020.
Others on the panel were less sure about how optimistic they should be.
Shipping fundamentals in the dry bulk sector are positive but there is a lot of uncertainty around political issues, said Bimco president Anastasios Papagiannopoulos, principal of Greek player Common Progress.
“I’m a bit afraid about the protectionist trend,” he said. “It’s difficult to make predictions for the next months, let alone for years.”
Other speakers also raised concerns about politics. “Every tweet [by US President Donald Trump] creates uncertainty, and uncertainty is not good for our business,” said Alexander Saverys, chief executive of Compagnie Maritime Belge and its Hunter Maritime spin-off.
Saverys praised China’s efforts to boost trade through the One Belt, One Road initiative.
“I’m very happy as a European shipowner that China is now taking the lead,” he said. “If the US doesn’t want to follow, it’s too bad for them, because then the next decade will be led by China.”
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