BWMS costs could sink smaller companies

Small- and medium-sized shipping companies may not be able to survive the financial impact of installing ballast water management systems (BWMSs), said a marine finance consultant, Alan McCarthy, yesterday (23 November).

News ID: 70543

Date: 03 December 2016 - 09:57

According to MANA, He was speaking to BWTT after addressing a seminar in London organised by the UK Chamber of Shipping about planning for enforcement of IMO’s Ballast Water Management Convention (BWMC). He told delegates that most large shipowners are funding installations out of cashflow and equity, but the poor state of the markets means that, for small- and medium-sized owners, “your equity went a long time ago.”
They would have to approach banks, shareholders or other investors, he said, but shareholders are “the hardest people to convince to put more money into a business.” As for banks, financing equipment installations is not traditional shipping finance, although obtaining short-term loans with renewable lines of credit to fund installations is theoretically possible, he said.
To make a successful application to a bank he said that owners must have best-practice corporate governance and suggested that smaller companies should combine to create a consolidated structure with a parent company to support the liabilities of the individual shipowning companies. “This is the way the industry is moving,” he said.