SSY’s expansion plan began with acquisitions, then came new hires — now the shipbroking group is out to dominate, its managing partner has told TradeWinds.
Its goal is to be among the top three shipbrokers in every market, leaving one major sector left to break — containers.
Stanko Jekov started in the top job at the beginning of 2023 and has wasted no time in modernising and expanding the group.
He said: “We want to create a company where we are top three in any market.”
The shipbroking group has spent the past year clocking up new hires of well-known names and entering new sectors, such as offshore, through the acquisition of two other shops. At the start of this month, it started in LPG.
Its entry into the LPG market at the end of October means there is only one sector in which it is not already active. So does SSY plan to get into containers?
Jekov said: “I don’t have anything on the books immediately, but I’m not going to rule it out that that is a space we might look to enter.
“We’re the largest private shipbroking firm in the industry and there’s a lot of clients.
“A lot of our clients — shipowners — are involved in containers as well and I believe that we, as a firm, should be able to offer all services for our major clients and not say ‘Well, hang on, we don’t do containers. Go to someone else’.”
This same rationale applied to SSY’s entry into LPG and ammonia, which is headed up by recruit Thorstein Bergersen.
SSY was already broking some LPG out of its bases in Mumbai and Madrid, but with the growing importance of ammonia, the time was right to build a bigger focus on the sector.
“We hired Cato Espero from Wartsila, who is heading up our alternative fuels division, and he’s very passionate — he’s been educating us on the market,” Jekov explained.
“As it becomes more relevant there will be a much bigger need to ship ammonia around the world, you’ve seen people starting to order these ammonia carriers,” he said.
“Thorstein does have quite a lot of background in ammonia and LPG, so that’s why we thought he was a perfect candidate for us.”
SSY’s headcount has grown from 360 to about 515 people across 25 offices worldwide since the start of last year.
New offices will open next year in Rotterdam to support SSY’s chemical tanker business and Aberdeen in Scotland to round out its offshore activities.
“We do want to be a major player in each one of these markets — so the day we decide to enter containers again, I’d like to think we’re going to do it properly,” Jekov said.
There is no set timeline in Jekov’s mind, it is a matter of waiting for the right opportunity.
He said he looks at propositions “all the time”.
Pressure has been mounting on shipbroking firms to step up their know-your-customer (KYC) and due diligence processes in response to tightening sanctions regimes since the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
Brokers are faced with walking a tightrope — being able to capture lucrative commercial opportunities that have emerged as sanctions reshape seaborne trade — while avoiding crossing red lines.
Some shops appear to have managed this more successfully than others, but the reality is that all brokers are subject to fast-changing, complex sanctions rules, penned by agencies with little familiarity with the shipping business.
“We are a private partnership, you know, registered in the US, so for us, the whole KYC sanctions vetting is a big part of our business, and something we look quite seriously upon,” Jekov said.
“We engage lawyers, both in the UK and in the US, on every transaction and so our legal bills have gone up tremendously because of this.
“We have also hired more people internally on sanctions and KYC checking.
“Every single deal is passed through [KYC] because when you’re a private partnership, where you are self-invested into it, you have to be very cautious.”
SSY’s Dubai office is a growing hub for sale and purchase and now has three brokers there.
Jekov confirmed that SSY has hired S&P broker Dimitri Kisselev, who joins in the Emirate from rival Braemar, as TradeWinds reported in August.
