A Circle of Friends

His blue eyes focused on mine and he said, “So,” with the no-nonsense tone for which the Dutch are famous. “What you are proposing is that Urs continue to do his job at Marine Money but DVB will now pay his salary.” Like so many things that come out of Sybren Hoekstra’s mouth, the statement was delivered as he leaned forward, head tilted slightly like a friendly but curious canine, and punctuated with the courtesy of a question mark; but it wasn’t a question.

As I looked around the table at Haru, a bustling midtown joint and favorite haunt of the local shipping bankers from Nordea, AMA and JP Morgan, I saw two gaping mouths – one belonged to Richard Janson, who seemed totally focused on lowering a giant piece of tuna sashimi into his mouth like a robin feeding its young, and the other belonged to Jim Lawrence, who was taking longer to formulate a response than is customary. Then everyone laughed and, it being a dry Tuesday affair, reached for the bowl of salty grass green Edamame.

And so began a delightful lunch with Sybren and Richard, a few days after Urs informed Jim and me that he would be leaving Marine Money after nearly three years to join the DVB team in New York. For our part, we couldn’t be happier about it. Urs has been a tremendous member of the Marine Money team; he has helped us to improve the quality of our work and I know that working on the banking side will give the ex-tanker broker and container lessor yet another perspective on the business. The fact that leading banks regularly recruit our editors is proof that our analytical skills have eclipsed our prose.

This is only an excerpt of A Circle of Friends

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