Participating in History

For better or worse, there are times in all of our lives when we can actually feel that history is being made; and for those of us who are committed to the business of financing ships, 2005 was one of those times.

But unlike the events that define the constellations of our personal lives, such as matrimony, a first child being born and death, history-making between shipping and the capital markets is not a one time event.

In fact, as I tried to put the year 2005 into context, what I learned was that shipping and the capital markets seem to make history together about once every four years. What has been different this time around is that three of the last four years have been history making and the impact has been compounded.

Over the course of the last 20 years, shipping and the capital markets have come together on four major occasions, for a variety of reasons that we will explain in the following pages. The reason why the harvest was so bountiful in 2005 was because the conditions couldn’t have been better.

What is clear from looking at history is that sometimes investors look to shipping because the shipping markets appear to have momentum and growth in earnings and asset F values and other times because it offers strong cash flow when interest rates are low and flows of funds into yield instruments are high. In 2005, both phenomena occurred simultaneously for the first time ever and created an enormous amount of activity in virtually every sector of the capital markets in every corner of the world.

This is only an excerpt of Participating in History

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