NYSE-listed Diana Shipping and Wilhelmsen Ship Management have announced the creation of a new 50/50 joint venture, Diana Wilhelmsen Management (DWM).
DWM will be based in Limassol, Cyprus, and will commence operations by the end of June. It will begin operations by providing management services to “a limited number of vessels of Diana Shipping’s fleet” and ultimately plans to provide management services to unaffiliated third-party vessel operators.
Diana’s fleet of 40 bulkers is currently managed by its wholly-owned subsidiary, Diana Shipping Services SA. According to Diana founder and chief executive Simeon Palios, the joint venture with Wilhelmsen will provide expanded management services to the fleet and “further enhance shareholder value through increased revenues” via the management of third-party vessels.
Wilhelmsen Ship Management is a division of Norway’s Wihl Wilhelmsen Group, with headquarters in Kuala Lumpur and additional offices in Oslo, Houston, Singapore, Southampton, and Pusan. According to Hakon Lenz, Wilhelmsen Ship Management vice-president of Europe and the Americas, the joint venture with Diana “truly brings forward an exciting new formula”.
In fact, this is not the first instance of a Greek shipowner teaming with an international ship management group. In 2010, the Tsakos family created a 50/50 joint venture with Columbia Shipmanagement called TCM, which currently provides ship management services to all but three vessels in the fleet of NYSE-listed Tsakos Energy Navigation (TEN).
According to TEN, TCM’s ability to leverage Columbia’s purchasing power allows it to procure supplies and services at a lower price than TEN could obtain via an in-house management strategy.
This post was sourced from IHS Maritime 360: View the original article here.
