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Evangelos Pistiolis Top Ships
EVANGELOS Pistiolis announced his presence on the big
stage of world shipping with a bang in July 2004 when he took
his company Top Tankers public on Nasdaq. It was the largest
initial public offering of a tanker company in the US for five years
and ushered in what would prove a new era for shipping in the
public capital markets.
The IPO raised $146m to buy 10 tankers from Sovcomflot
and within the same year another $130m was raised, partly for
acquiring five suezmaxes from Essar.
In early 2005, Top Tankers made a bid to diversify with the
acquisition of a fleet of 15 bulkers. If it had succeeded, the history
of the company could have been quite different, but financial
markets were tightening their purse strings and a proposed
private placement to fund the deal fizzled out.
To be renamed Top Ships, the owner entered the dry bulk
market on a more modest scale later on, but when the dry bulk
boom had almost run its course.
Although a series of six 50,000 dwt product-chemical tankers
were delivered by SPP Shipbuilding in 2009 and hired out on
bareboat charters, Mr Pistiolis has spent much of the last few
years weathering the storm and has been innovative in chopping
back Top Ships’ expenses.
The hard-working 39-year-old will no doubt bounce back to
more aggressive shipping deals. Now dividing his time mainly
between Greece and offices in Monaco, where a new privately
held family outfit, Central Shipping, has been established,
Mr Pistiolis gave a recent hint of things to come with Central’s
maiden order for two product tanker newbuildings at the STX
Offshore & Shipbuilding yard in Dalian, China.
Harry Vafias Stealthgas
FEW Greek shipowners combine a grasp of new business tools
and old-fashioned hands-on involvement with such alacrity as
Harry Vafias.
Mr Vafias, chief executive of Nasdaq-listed StealthGas and
de facto head of his family’s private shipping empire, has the
curriculum vitae of an old hand in the industry but is still
only 34.
After gaining sale and purchase and chartering experience
with top London shipbrokers Seascope and Braemar, he
joined his father’s dry bulk shipping business Brave Maritime
in 1999 and in the same year launched Stealth Maritime, a
sister company marking the family’s first foray into tankers. It
was an instant success and foreshadowed the group’s future
development to the extent that today the group comprises 34
liquefied petroleum gas carriers, eight LPG newbuilds and 22
tankers with just two bulkers.
Running a public company has offered a broader education
than a family business, says Mr Vafias. However, he credits
his father Nikos for allowing him not only seed capital but the
freedom to develop the business his way. “You also need lots
of luck, determination, a thick skin, ambition and to be able to
judge people’s characters,” he says.
Lucius Bunk and Alexander Tebbe Auerbach Schifffahrt
GERMAN shipping may be weathering one of most
challenging periods in its history but this has not stopped
52 next generation 2012
Keeping watch:
clockwise from top
left, Hanne Sørensen,
Grant Daly, Abhishek
Pandey, Birgit Liodden,
Krish, Krishnamurthi
and Julie Lithgow
33-year-old Lucius Bunk and 30-year-old Alexander Tebbe
from starting up a new venture.
Their shipping company Auerbach Schifffahrt, set up
in 2010, eventually wants to control the whole value chain
for small bulkers and general cargo vessels. Like KG funds,
the company relies on wealthy private investors, but with
Auerbach, they play much more of an entrepreneurial role.
Though young, the two company founders have already
gained quite an impressive track record in the shipping
business, both in Germany and abroad. Mr Tebbe has worked
for various owners, brokers and KG financiers after studing ship
finance in London. Mr Bunk studied Sinology before joining the
management programme of a Hamburg shipping company. He
is now spearheading Auerbach’s expansion into Asia.
Jeffrey Landsberg Commodore Research & Consultancy
JEFFREY Landsberg’s entrepreneurial spirit came at just the
right time in the shipping downturn because since setting up
Commodore Research & Consultancy in March 2010, he has
made a name for himself as a leading provider of dry bulk
information.
The New York-based company’s biggest coup is the
exclusive partnership it has formed with the China National
Shipping Service, a government organisation based in Beijing
that works with Chinese shipowners, for which Commodore is
a paid consultant.