A conservative approach to the Shipping Research Fantasy Football League has seen MPC Capital’s director of maritime investment Cedric Huysman take an early lead.
The annual competition for analysts and brokers now has a new record number of 68 people playing, with a prize pot of £680 ($785).
Huysman clinched the manager of the month award for August.
“There is a school of thought that a conservative investment strategy is best for the early weeks of the season. Well, Cedric played like he was investing his grandmother’s savings,” organiser Vivek Srivastava said.
The MPC Capital man came in just ahead of previous champions Lars Kirkby from Landkreditt Forvaltning and Arne Blystad’s Sven Gustav Bakken.
Huysman picked the highest-scoring, and therefore the most expensive, player in the last five seasons, Liverpool’s Mo Salah, and left him as captain for the whole month.
And he only made three transfers.
“Cedric is the poster child of patient, long-term capital,” Srivastava added.
But while Salah was failing to score any points in the 9-0 thrashing of Bournemouth, Erling Haaland was busy racking up back-to-back hat tricks.
Could have done better?
Huysman also had the Manchester City striker in his team but did not make him captain.
“While he is leading the league, he could have done better,” Srivastava said.
MPC Capital has invested plenty of cash in ammonia-powered boxship newbuildings this year.
In an extended metaphor on alternative fuelling, Srivastava pondered whether Salah represents high sulphur fuel oil, the dominant but expensive choice of the past, and Erling Haaland is ammonia, the newcomer and optimal choice of the future.
“Or is the optimal strategy to invest in a Mo Salah-powered ship, but make it Erling Haaland-ready?” he asked.
“Either way, well done Cedric. Your prize money is on its way by the lowest carbon mode of delivery we can find: carrier pigeon (word of warning, that pigeon has been known to get distracted occasionally, over snail farms in France),” the organiser said.
In a season already disrupted by the winter World Cup in Qatar, the death of Queen Elizabeth II led to the postponement of a round of games in the UK, with more cancelled this weekend.
“This could be a sparse month,” warned Srivastava.
