New Braemar Shipping Services group chief executive James Gundy has revealed why the time is right to step up to the top job as the company focuses more on its core shipbroking business.
The experienced tanker and sale-and-purchase broker was announced as the new boss this week, taking on a dual role from 1 January while retaining his current job as head of shipbroking division Braemar ACM.
Executive chairman Ron Series told TradeWinds that shipbroking would now drive the UK-listed group’s future direction, describing the move as: “Back to the future, if you like.”
The search for a leader had been on since former chief executive James Kidwell retired in July 2019. So what took so long?
Gundy said: “I had to be happy myself to step up. It would have been very unfair to the board to put myself forward if I didn’t feel comfortable with where we are in shipbroking.
“A lot of the workload has been taken off now. Before, I was slightly more of a control freak on certain things. But now I’m very happy and pleased with the team stepping up. It’s a big team effort here, it’s not just me.”
Another man with two roles, chief operating officer and chief financial officer Nick Stone, said steps have been taken to make the change work. The executive board at Braemar ACM has been made tighter, with five members, including him and Gundy.
“Some of the work James might have shouldered in the past is now being shared among the experienced team,” Stone said. “We have also expanded our management capability in Singapore. A year ago, this would have been very difficult.”
Gundy said the new structure allows him to be able to continue broking and drive the business forward.
“There will be some handover of some things on my broking side that allows me to maintain both roles, but [I will] still be very much involved in the broking business,” he said.
Gundy feels he can use his time wisely now and will delegate aspects of running the business.
“I’ve got a good team around me and Nick is going to be there to lean on,” he said. “I’m running it from the front, the coal face, as they say. I believe very much in that.”
Ready to step up
Gundy joined Braemar in 2014 when it merged with rival London broker ACM Shipping, where he was chief executive. He then stepped down from the new Braemar board to focus on broking.
“I felt that the bigger job in hand was shipbroking,” he told TradeWinds. “It’s only now, six years later, that I feel it’s time to step up again — and I certainly couldn’t do that without the team around me that has definitely stepped up from their side as well.
“I feel a lot more comfortable doing it now; even a year ago was too early.”
The focus on broking marks a partial break from the approach of the previous management team to construct a business on a number of different legs to resist the cyclical nature of shipping.
Non-core businesses have been gradually stripped away. Braemar spun off three of its four technical services businesses into AqualisBraemar earlier this year, and is taking bids for the fourth, LNG and LPG engineering specialist Wavespec.
Series told TradeWinds: “We are confident we will get that business squared away in short order.”
He added that shipbroking would drive the group’s future direction: “That’s the core of our DNA, that’s where most things happen in this business. We’ve built a few things around it and we’re looking forward to growing that business very successfully.”
Series sees Gundy’s mission as returning Braemar to its “rightful place among the shipbroking pantheon”. “There is a very exciting time ahead,” Series said.
Stone added that with recent divestments, the business is a lot “tidier”. “James, with his shipbroking heritage, is not going to be distracted by some of those things that would have taken away his valuable time,” he said.
But Gundy is not closing the door to other businesses completely. One example is the new screen for the dry freight derivatives industry, Braemarscreen.com, which is seeking to streamline the pre-execution process of trading forward freight agreements.
The screen will be operated by Zuma Labs, a software development and technology trading company. Braemar is taking a 20% stake in the joint venture, which is headed by former panamax trader and shipping technologist Chase Bennett.
“Shipbroking is our business, and we need to lead from that,” Gundy said. “But I’m definitely open to all things that complement shipbroking, for sure.”
Plans include a likely move back into the US shipbroking market, and growing its securities business.
New offices in Geneva and Athens will also expand.
“We’ve already put a lot of this in place,” Gundy said. “We’ve now got to grow what we’ve got. The platform is there to be built on.”
New hires across the globe are “strong characters”, who want success for the group.
