SSY has hired two seasoned brokers who will head up its newbuildings team.
Jon Staalesen and Fredrik Herman Hansen started at the shipbroking group’s base in Oslo on Monday.
Staalesen worked for Fearnleys for nearly 29 years and Hansen for more than 17 years until August, when they left to set up their own concern.
The pair will join two other newbuilding brokers at SSY, who are based in London and Shanghai, plus ancillary staff in Singapore and Japan.
Toby English, head of sale and purchase at SSY, told TradeWinds the new hires represent a bigger focus on newbuildings for the group.
The pair will bring their own client book with them and will also work with SSY’s 43 S&P brokers across 10 global offices.
“They bring a huge amount of experience and will add a lot of value,” English said.
English said the brokers’ expertise in offshore vessels is a strategic interest for SSY, which expanded into offshore this year with deals to take over smaller shops Westshore in Norway and F3O Offshore Services in Germany.
Staalesen and Hansen have particular experience in working with vessel design companies that can offer more fuel-efficient designs to clients, as well as with shipyards in China, South Korea and Europe, said English.
The new-look newbuildings team tops off a busy year of expansion, hiring and rebranding for SSY, after managing partner Stanko Jekov started in the top job on 1 January.
Jekov told TradeWinds in October that SSY wants to do more in offshore, which will probably entail hiring additional brokers, and would like to branch out into new sectors in which it does not already have a presence.
New hires this year included well-known names such as Dr Roar Adland, who joined as global head of research; Jarl Magnus Berge as global head of finance; and head of LNG research Kyla Schliebs.
In September, SSY launched its European Union Emissions Trading System consultancy service, in partnership with CF Partners.
