We begin with the Welcome & Opening Remarks by Mia Jensen, Marine Money – Greek Office
“Good Morning.
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to our 25th Marine Money Greek Ship Finance Forum – the 2nd longest running Marine Money conference. Thank you – for investing your valuable time with us today.
I would also like to thank our Conference Partner BOCOM Financial Leasing and all our other sponsors, moderators and speakers. The intellectual input, guidance and the financial support that you have given – allow us to deliver a constructive 25th Anniversary event in Athens and I hope you will enjoy our conference —
productive networking — and that you come away with ideas and inspiration for your business.
It is an honor to see here today – so many prominent figures of Greece’s leading shipping groups and bankers, financiers, lawyers and brokers, from all corners of the world. I am very happy, that our event is embraced again by our community of creative, dynamic and important maritime, finance and professional leaders.
Over 370 in the audience during the day – over 140 of you have travelled in, from 19 countries.
My colleague Kevin Oates crafted today’s Agenda and will guide conference proceedings. From our US and Asia offices Jim Lawrence, Matt McCleery and Andrew Oates are with us today.
Our Registration Desk is managed by my Greek colleagues Irini and Effie and the 4 Greek students helping us, and looking to start their careers in Greek Shipping. Just to mention – if any of you can help with career opportunities, we thank you.
A few words about our online platform – it allows for easy navigation to all that Marine Money has to offer plus some features to enhance our member’s experience.
On our website and through our publications a huge amount of data is available to our Members. Additionally, there is online access to the vast archive of Marine Money events and presentations given. Today’s presentation
will be online next week.
The locations for our events are held in the most premier shipping centers in the world. This year we will again be able to host our whole schedule of 18 conferences across the globe. During the coming 6 weeks our events are
held in: Busan, Shanghai, New York and New Orleans.
Our conference experience is second to none and has been a staple of the industry for over 36 years. We focus on building a premium environment that enables the best conditions for networking, intelligence gathering and relationship building.
We do this to a level that our participants have come to expect – and we are proud to continue to deliver our events – and playing the role we do in the ship finance market.
Now in a post-Covid19 future, where our industry is tackling the most fundamental issues facing our world – climate, hunger and global supply chains – we are proud to be bringing back together – our community of maritime businesses – entrepreneurs and financiers – who may – more than any other sector in the world – have a direct and positive, meaningful impact on the future of the world.
The focus today is SHIPPING AND FINANCE MAKES THE WORLD GO AROUND
Our 55 speakers will discuss current issues prevalent for Greek Shipping and Ship Finance and for the industry at large, and business opportunities and risks.
This conference is also the ideal opportunity to reflect on the past quarter century in Greek shipping as well as peer into the future of the industry both from a Greek and a global perspective.
Coffee Breaks are held in the room just outside to your left, with Sponsors display area.
Lunch Buffet and Closing Reception will take place upstairs on the 2nd floor in the Peristyle room.
All participants registered for today’s conference are invited to attend the Cocktail Reception cohosted by IRI / The Marshal Islands and tonight’s Capital Party taking place at the Karaiskaki Stadium, Neo Faliro, about 10 15 min. drive from here, or 56 min by foot.
We hope you enjoy our Greek Ship Finance conference — the networking and that you come away with new contacts, ideas and inspiration for your business.
Video recordings, presentations and Final Participants List will be available next week and I will send you links and Final List.
I now have the pleasure of introducing you to the person who saw the need for a Greek Ship Finance form – 25 years ago – Jim Lawrence, Founder and Chairman of Marine Money International.
Following now is one of the best post-events recap of its kind by Marine Money following their very successful and well attended event:
“We had a great time celebrating our 25th anniversary of Marine Money Greece on 17th October 2023 at the
Eugenides Foundation.
It was a packed house with over 380 delegates, speakers and sponsors with one third travelling in from 20 countries. The healthy debate in the conference room was matched by the enthusiastic networking outside.
The best way to get a true feel for the event is to watch
the video replays of the event which can be seen at
https://www.marinemoney.com/events-2-0-2/2023-greekship-finance-forum
In the meantime some of the takeaways from the conference include:
- Stay patient, don’t invest in shipping just yet
- The container sector is the most sensitive to the price of fuel and the price of cargo
- Of all the sectors dry bulk is in a lower quartile so may be the better investment for 2024
- Tankers are over-valued and as we know technically it is flawed to buy near the top of a cycle
- Generally it is not a period to take significant risks
- The traditional view of investment at the low point of the market does not currently apply to any market sector
- One route is to invest in global decarbonisation, not shipping decarbonisation
- If no obvious place to invest, cash could be used to deleverage or to buy back shares if a public company
- Regulators look at climate risk as the biggest risk banks have aside from the actual credit risk
- Technology has enabled shipping to become transparent which it never was before
- 50% of the order book for vessels is still with traditional fuels. So these owners must believe in a kind of status quo for the next 20 years
- Owners are cash rich and they are holding on to old and uneconomic vessels just in case of another black swan event and high earnings
- The new growth of China is the Chinese investment
in SE Asia - The current period is a bit like 2004 to 2008 but without the huge order book so the strong liquidity has remained
- Shipping banks portfolios will amortise quicker than expected through prepayments
- Banks prefer a prepayment to a late payment
- It is a very rationale decision to prepay a loan with excess cash
- Greek owners however do have a huge volume of newbuild orders delivering over the next two years so there will be a substantial requirement for finance
- Green financing has not lost traction since the industry itself is moving fast forward in terms of ESG
- ESG risk, compliance risk and financial risk have equal weighting in a bank’s credit process
- The industry always needs a large amount of capital to grow the fleet, in the day to go double hull, and now to participate in the decarbonisation mission
- There is below trend demand growth in most sectors, but supply growth is better controlled
- For a public company there is no point to have loads of cash on your balance sheet, cash does not build value
- In the longer run the cost of doing nothing may be higher than the cost of an expensive investment in decarbonizing your business
- Shipping companies who went public in the early 2000s and then failed did not really make a mistake, they were just doing what they were told by the investment banks at the time
- The markets are open to raise capital, but there are not enough projects and no need for the cash right now
- The risk appetite of Greek owners is unmatched in shipping #
The mood was great and over 380 shipping executives spent the day hearing debates, talking,
laughing and networking.
25 years of Marine Money in Greece is a long time but every year in shipping is exciting with new and
wonderful things happening and we look forward to catching up with you all again next year at our
26th Marine Money Greek Ship Finance Forum
See you again next year on 15 October 2024“
