Private shipbroker Arrow Energy & Shipping has restructured in the last few months, with its founders reducing their shareholding in a bid to bring on the next generation in the company.
Arrow chief executive Jeremy Palin told TradeWinds that in the past few months Richard Meins, Robert Clancy and himself have all realigned their stakes in the business.
Palin said the stakeholder adjustments were made to bring new shareholders into the holding company. That includes the next generation of people that the company sees as managing the business.
He said Arrow now has around 30-plus shareholders of varying generations and responsibilities who are all “key parts of the business”.
“That is our succession,” Palin said. “We’ve changed the shareholding structure to enfranchise people who are key to the future of this business.”
Meins, an Arrow founder and renowned capesize broker in his day, remains a shareholder but is no longer a director and is not involved in the day-to-day running of Arrow. Clancy retains a sale-and-purchase business outside the UK.
Companies House records show that the three key stakeholders have subdivided their shares by 1,000.
As of September 2024, Clancy now holds 84,000 ordinary shares, Meins 67,200 and Palin 100,800 in holding company Arrow Shipping (UK) Ltd.
The CEO also revealed that the company is in the process of creating its first executive board — some of whom will be former Arrow trainees — which it hopes to have in place before the end of this year.
Palin, who has just turned 50 and said he is “not going anywhere anytime soon”, took on the role of Arrow’s first CEO in 2021.
He said the company had grown to such a scale that there needed to be some form of reporting process.
It currently boasts a staff of over 350 globally, which it expects to expand to beyond 400 in 2025.
But he stressed that all departments are run on a horizontal working platform with desk and geographic heads.
“We are not mired in hierarchy here,” he said.
Arrow Shipping (UK) filed its annual results for December 2023 with Companies House.
Profit for 2023 dropped to £4.3m ($5.5m) from £7.4m in 2022.
Turnover for the year fell to £79.2m, down from £106.8m a year earlier.
Arrow, which has moved its London HQ to a new larger office in Sloane Avenue, said the dry cargo market experienced a weaker year in 2023.
Lower freight rates impacted the business negatively even though fixture volumes were up on those of 2022. Freight rates remained “broadly flat” during the year.
It said the tanker market strengthened, while S&P market activity was slightly down in 2023.
Arrow flagged up its newly established division, Arrow Energy Markets, which is focused on the oil products derivatives sector and said it is forecast to drive sales, increase profits and diversify its service offering.
The brokerage has since dived into tanker spot chartering and is in the process of growing a new desk to serve this sector headed up by Rupert Lawson.
