Alex Karakassis likes that his name is rarely in the headlines.
The Harvard-educated Greek chief executive of Stainless Tankers was an executive at two shipping companies after a long career in investment banking — but has hardly ever appeared in the pages of TradeWinds.
“It was a low-profile situation, that’s why you didn’t find anything,” Karakassis said of his time as finance chief at Oaktree Capital Management-backed Chemical Tankers Inc. “I like to be low profile.”
Karakassis started his career in investment banking in 1997 working at Solomon Brothers and Citigroup, touching on shipping in the transportation group and working in Greece.
He would become more entrenched in shipping when Oaktree Capital launched Hansa Leavy Lift with Beluga Shipping’s fleet following the company’s collapse amid fraud allegations.
“[Oaktree said] let’s start our own fully integrated operator,” Karakassis said. “This was a big challenge, and I have to say, and but also an extremely interesting eight years of my life.”
He would keep working with Oaktree Capital when it launched Chemical Tankers Inc after it took full control of Navig8’s 32 chemical tankers in 2021.
Strategic fleet acquisition and resale
That company would sell its fleet, mostly coated tankers, in 2022 to Hafnia. Hafnia would flip six of the J19 stainless-steel chemical tankers to Dutch-outfit Ace Tankers for just over $252m.
“The timing was perfect for both parties,” Karakassis said of the Oaktree Capital-Hafnia deal.
“From the moment we did the deal… the market started taking off, and the share price started taking off. So both were happy. Oaktree did really well out of it.”
Stainless Tankers itself owns nine J19 stainless-steel tankers, adding another thread of continuity in Karakassis’ career.
The company started with seven and acquired an additional two through debt financing in early November.
See also: Stainless Tankers promises to stick to the script for its stint on the Oslo Stock Exchange
