C Transport Maritime (CTM)’s three-year-old Supramax revenue-sharing agreement (RSA) now numbers over 40 ships controlled by 13 members and is expanding further.
March 17th, 2016 18:00 GMT
by Lucy Hine, London
Published in WEEKLY
Two new owners — Gestioni Armatoriali and Shamrock Maritime — have joined the grouping recently and existing members like CBC, Navios and Nautical Buk Holdings have added more vessels, with 10 additional third-party supramaxes and ultramaxes joining last month. CTM head of minor bulk Carlos Pena, who is working with chief executive John Michael Radziwill on the new panamax RSA, says a number of additional vessels have been committed to join in the next few months that will push the supramax RSA fleet total to 50. “We hope within this year we will be closer to 60,” he said. Pena says the RSA differs from a pool in that owners use their own charter parties and the cargoes are not controlled centrally. CTM claims its performance has outperformed the Baltic Exchange’s Supramax Index by over 10% so far this year.The Monaco-based company also says other third-party managers have complained that CTM’s fees are too low. Radziwill says the company is not fee-driven, insisting that CTM is “first and foremost” a shipowner. He says its cash will come instead from boosting the revenue of its vessels through consolidation.“We are going to accomplish the same things we did in the supramax segment [with the panamax RSA] and we are open for business,” he said. “It is the same formula. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”Radziwill, whose company is also a member of the new Capesize Chartering pool, says owners in the dry bulk space need to unite because at present rates they are subsidising charterers.He expects further developments for the capesize venture in the near future but declines to comment on these at present.
*Reproduced with permission from TradeWinds AS