Clay Maitland

On a quest for quality in shipping

When in Rome……

I’m in Rome to speak at a shipping conference (of which there are many these days), gazing down from Monte Mario, at a panorama dramatically backlit by periods of sun and brief showers of rain. Continue reading

Write no epitaph for greek shipping

To make his fateful appeal for emergency financial support, Greek Prime Minister Papandreou chose – unintentionally – a small island in the Dodecanese that was once the base for a significant Greek trading fleet. Continue reading

Greek shipping will face further scrutiny

Our agents in the Greek shipping community have, as our readers know, been warning us that the alleged bail-out package hatched last weekend wouldn’t work. Sure enough, by early Thursday, the rout had resumed: the yields on 10-year Greek sovereign bonds had risen to a near record 7.4 per cent. Continue reading

Greek shipping and the financial crisis

What do Greek shipowners make of their country’s current fiscal crisis, and how will it affect their willingness to invest? As we scratch our heads about what might happen to all that Chinese-built tonnage, whether or not we buy the story that lots of it has been or will be “cancelled” for- ever, a study of Greek shipping’s history may be instructive. Continue reading

Follow the Greek lead on ship finance

As I get set to leave Athens after yesterday’s execellent turnout at the Capital Link forum I am reminded that many of us will return here in June for Posidonia, the shipping industry’s largest and most famous conference and trade fair. My first Posidonia was in 1976. Continue reading

Don’t rely on the BDI for market forecast

I’ve just arrived in Athens fresh from the excellent Mare Forum in Houston and ready for Capital Link’s seminar on the capital markets and I thought I would give you a snapshot of my take on what happens next in the shipping markets. Continue reading

Webinar round-up

Despite a couple of minor technical glitches, the CapitalLink webinar produced a lively debate on Tuesday.

One question asked about how bankers and other stakeholders could engage with senior sea staff, and discussed what one caller referred to as “the invisible aspects of shipping.” Continue reading

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