Page 21 - ΝΑΥΤΙΚΑ ΧΡΟΝΙΚΑ - ΟΚΤΩΒΡΙΟΣ 2024

In his interview with Naftika Chronika, Panos Laskaridis analyses his company's
strategy in this period of social and political uncertainty yet market euphoria.
Panos Laskaridis, a benefactor of the Hellenic Navy, also discusses his vision for
present-day philanthropy and speaks candidly about the challenges that
a family-owned ship management company faces today.

GREEK SHIPOWNERS

KNOW WHEN TO BUY,

WHEN TO SELL,

AND WHEN TO INVEST

IN A NEWBUILDING

Panos Laskaridis, ❶ In recent years, the freight rate markets that you are left with fresh cash, which represents
CEO of Laskaridis for nearly all types of ships have recorded the equity needed for investing in a newbuilding. In
Shipping Company Ltd an outstanding performance. Considering other words, you buy a younger ship with the money
and Lavinia Corporation,
that shipping is a volatile industry, what you got from the sale and exploitation of your older
talks to is your strategy in the event that freight vessels. We have followed this strategy during the
Giannis Theodoropoulos
rates drop? current period; we have sold ten older vessels and
The fortunes of the freight markets are not syn- have ordered ten newbuildings. We will follow this
chronised. There are times when bulkers perform strategy for the next two years. Going forward, the
better and times when tankers perform better. It average age of our fleet’s ships will be seven or eight
depends on the fleet type you operate. The bulk years old, which is relatively young compared with
carrier freight market exploded in 2021 and 2022 that of our peers.
after the crisis that lasted for ten years. 2023 was The second part of our strategy includes diversifi-
not bad, and 2024 has not been bad, but it has not cation. Therefore, we are making efforts to upsize
been really exceptional either. Today, most bulker our tanker fleet because, as I said before, the two
carrier owners have strong cashflows, and each one markets do not coincide. We own 14 small tankers,
of them has their own strategy. We, as a ship man- and we have also ordered a number of MR tankers.
agement company, have a robust bulk carrier fleet. The larger the ship, the more profitable it can be,
Our strategy is to keep renewing it. We have a young especially in the tanker market. Given that we do not
fleet as we are building new vessels, mainly in China yet have a long-standing experience to manage very
but also in South Korea. Now, we have reached a large tankers, we will start with the smaller ones.
point where we have some ships that are 10 or 12 Our reefer fleet is old but fully employed and prof-
years old. With the good prices that prevail, it makes itable. However, in this segment, there is intense
sense to sell the older ships. This is my opinion, and competition from the Chinese, who build larger but
many other colleagues agree; you sell at a good very simple reefers. In this context, we have set up
price the ship that has already made money over a joint venture with the Chinese group Liaoyu to
the years, and you are left to repay a relatively small build four reefer ships, showing that we follow the
loan on that vessel. The result of this equation is trend of renewing our reefer fleet as well.

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