Friday, April 12, 2019

Singapore Marine Ltd.: Another Billionaire-backed Swiss Based Shipping Company

MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A., Geneva, being the other:
Dec.4 
"MSC" is the abbreviation, not a stock symbol. The company Is privately owned with the controlling shareholders, the Aponte clan, being worth at least $8 billion and probably over $10 B.
See also after the jump.

From Bloomberg via gCaptain:

Hitting the Slopes: Swiss Ski Hub is Home Port for Billionaire-Backed Shipping Firm
Peter Weernink, the former head of a shipping line that counts Glencore Plc as its biggest shareholder, has started a new dry bulk operator from one of Switzerland’s most exclusive Alpine resorts.

Singapore Marine Ltd. will have an office in Verbier, the Swiss village where Weernink resides, alongside British royals and celebrities such as singer James Blunt. The firm has raised $105 million including the purchase of a 15 percent stake by Golden Ocean Group Ltd., another dry bulk shipper that’s indirectly owned by Norway-born shipping magnate John Fredriksen.

“We started this new venture because we believe that we can build a large and successful company in this space,” Weernink said in an emailed response to questions.

“We started this new venture because we believe that we can build a large and successful company in this space,” Weernink said in an emailed response to questions.

Weernink is an industry veteran who spent 11 years with Cargill Inc. before co-founding SwissMarine in 2001 with a group of former traders from the U.S. agri-giant. Last year he left Bermuda-based SwissMarine, which owns a fleet of vessels and has handled annual volumes of about 130 million tons....MORE
SwissMarine SA is also based in Geneva and very secretive. In 2017 the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists estimated revenues of "$1 - 2 billion" a pretty wide range for the supersleuths but is was the best they could come up with. As I said, SwissMarine is secretive.
Here's the ICIJ's "The ships Glencore wanted to keep ‘hush hush’"