Freshly Minted – April 14, 2000

THE SECOND ANNUAL SHIP FINANCE FORUM: NORWAY

BREAKING NEWS “LIVE” FROM OSLO!

Thursday’s very successful event hosted by Marine Money International and it’s corporate sponsors DnB Shipping, Haight Gardner Holland & Knight, Wiersholm, Mellbye & Bech and last Oslo Stock Exchange attracted over a 120 ship finance executives from all major shipping companies and banks in Scandinavia. Tidbits from the speakers tell us that there are again more positive expectations for shipping companies as well as the B2B boom / explosion hitting our industry. However Ragnhild Wiborgr, portfolio manager of the only pure shipping investment fund, Odin Forvaltning urged, for the second year in a row, shipping companies to improve their corporate transparency in order to increase private investor’s appetite for shipping equities. This is especially important today, for the shipping companies who are listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange who, together with oil service companies and cruise companies represent 22% of the market cap, and who must compete closely with the “new business” companies who have 20% of the market cap and increasing fast. On Wiborg’s top list in corporate transparency, I.M. Skaugen and Frontline scored highest points, while Fred Olsen was slaughtered on corporate transparency.

Morits Skaugen , CEO of chemical company I.M. Skaugen told the audience how his company is very successfully improving their corporate transparency through the use of Internet and B2B commerce. It is clear that they will be a good example for other shipping companies. We hope that more shipping companies will follow in the footsteps of Skaugen in improving their corporate transparency to again attract the interest of shipping’s familiar equity investors. Keep in mind that the companies also need average returns to be more than 6-9 %.

This is only an excerpt of Freshly Minted – April 14, 2000

Content is restricted to subscribers. To continue reading please Log-In or view our subscription options.