Mark Terzopoulos has started the LNG sector’s first boutique broking business with new Athens venture Longview.
The company quietly opened at the beginning of this year with Terzopoulos as managing director working alongside an analyst.
When TradeWinds tracked him down, he said Longview’s interest will be on structural and term deals, working with a smaller group of clients and focusing on the Greek market.
He said Longview — the name comes from his great grandfather’s farm, as well as containing those key letters L-N-G and representing its focus on medium-term business and beyond — is trying to offer a different service and is not in competition with the large LNG teams at mainstream brokerages.
“I think there is space for a boutique shipbrokerage, which we don’t have in LNG,” he said, adding that other sectors have similar types of businesses.
Terzopoulos said boutique shops can offer more tailor-made services. He also sees scope for ironing out inefficiencies by improving the dialogue between shipowners and charterers.
The company will grow a little in time, he said, but the entire team will never be more than “a handful of people” to maintain its status with a maximum of three brokers and others working on different aspects of the business.
Asked about his view on the market, he said: “There is a lot changing and there will be a lot to change. I think the market will surprise us — but with volatility more than anything else.”
Terzopoulos surprised the industry a year ago when he left Maran Gas after just two years as commercial director, saying it was time for him to “take on a new challenge” and only revealing that it would be in LNG shipping.
He took some time off to decide what he wanted to do.
He comes from a long line of entrepreneurs — his grandfather and father both set up their own titles in the publishing sector — and although LNG broking might not have been on his radar five years ago, the need to do something entrepreneurial has been there since his undergraduate days.
After a spell in the publishing business, the economics graduate took a master’s degree in energy, trade & finance at London’s Bayes Business School, formerly known as Cass.
He worked with Navig8 on tankers for four years before moving on to LNG chartering with TMS Cardiff Gas.
Joining Maran Gas in 2020, he worked initially with LNG shipping legend Richard Gilmore, the Greek owner’s commercial chief.
But after 10 years working with shipowners, Terzopoulos decided it was time to step outside his comfort zone and follow in the steps of his entrepreneurial forebears.
