Giorgio Denaro has been working Turkey’s sale-and-purchase market for 25 years but he has rarely seen it as busy as now.
“One almost can’t follow, it’s crazy,” he told TradeWinds in an interview at the headquarters of Alpina Shipping & Trading, the company he leads.
Denaro’s team have sold more than 15 vessels this year and there is little sign of slowing.
“With high freight rates in the Black Sea, people are buying to take advantage of the situation,” Denaro said.
“Tankers prices are going up but they’re not at any crazy level yet, so there will continue to be some buying interest,” he added.
Denaro sees some scope for more bulker deals down the road as well.
“Right now, bulk carriers are very expensive. So if the market sees a little drop, maybe owners will start selling to cash the profit,” he said.
Alpina’s deals usually involve a Turkish buyer, either as seller or buyer.
“This year, Turks were mostly active on the buying side,” said Ilknur Elbana, who has been an Alpina broker for 17 years.
That makes her one of the most seasoned players in the outfit, the S&P activities of which Denaro kickstarted when moving to Istanbul in 1997 from his native Italy, where he had worked with Genoa-based brokers Enrico Scolaro.
Alpina soon joined the Kalkavan Group, from which it became independent in 2012 — even though it remains Kalkavan’s exclusive S&P broker and the two entities are housed in the same building.
“Ninety percent of our business comes from third-party clients,” Denaro said.
Vibrant scene
Local economic wobbles have done little to dampen Turkish buying appetite.
In the wake of rising inflation, some Turkish lenders have become more careful in their shipping lending than before.
Big Turkish shipowners, however, continue having unfettered access to the big European lenders or the Far Eastern leasing financiers they always did business with.
Smaller Turkish players, who usually depend more on local banks, have been often able to bridge any financing gap with their own funds.
Some structural problems within the local ship financing scene persist, however.
“The problem is we don’t have ship finance in Turkey — we have commercial finance, said Alpina broker Hakan Coskunfirat.
This means that lenders often ask for collateral to fund deals — land or cash — just as they do in onshore credit.
Depending on fluctuations in the value of the Turkish lira, collateral assessments change a lot and smaller ship investors can find their terms of finance changed if they don’t use the funds quickly, warned Alpay Taspinar, another Alpina broker.
Despite such problems, however, Alpina brokers say their market is set to grow as Turkish owners gradually move from small tankers and cargo ships to bigger units.
The excellence of technical management nous reached in the country and a nexus to a vibrant, local shipyard scene provide further advantages.
“When banks see Turkish players can manage vessels, then they provide the finance - sometimes on easier terms, sometimes on tougher,” Coskunfirat said.
