Case Study: Anglo-Eastern Celebrates 50 Years of Excellence

 

“Ship management is about like-minded shipowners pooling their resources around certain quality standards,” says Anglo-Eastern CEO Bjørn Højgaard, “and we want to be the safest, most reliable and highest quality provider.” Sounds surprisingly simple, doesn’t it? But it’s really a tall order.

Founded in 1974 in Hong Kong by Englishman Peter Nash, Anglo-Eastern was one of the earliest ship management companies. It didn’t start out that way, but it soon became apparent to Nash and others that companies would pay for someone else to manage their assets – in this case, ships. A new industry was born.

A successful management buyout in 1998, led by current Chairman Peter Cremers, followed by a merger with U.K.-based Denholm Ship Management in 2001, established the company as we know it today. That was followed by an even bigger merger in 2015 – this time with Hong Kong-based Univan Ship Management – that brought Højgaard, who was running Univan at the time, into the fold.

More recently, Anglo-Eastern entered the cruise sector with the acquisition of Cruise Management International in 2022 and earlier this year agreed to purchase Euronav Ship Management Hellas, giving it a strong foothold in the Greek market, not to mention Euronav’s around 60 tankers.

Setting the Standard

Today, Anglo-Eastern (the name refers to its Anglo-Saxon roots and Hong Kong base) is among the biggest ship managers in the business, and it may be the best. With about 700 vessels under full Technical Management (meaning everything from crewing and training to safety and compliance), 500 more under Crew Management and roughly 1,000 special projects over the years (supervising drydocks, retrofits, newbuilds and the like), it’s been setting records for decades.

But size is not the goal. Being the safest, most reliable and highest-quality provider is. And in that regard, Hojgaard says he is fortunate that the company is privately held and the three large shareholding families, when he meets with them at board meetings, don’t start off with, “Have we got more ships” or “What’s the bottom line?,” but rather, “Can we still be proud of the name? Are we doing good with our people and are we developing standards and lifting the game?”

It's not that they don’t care about size or profits, of course. It’s simply that they believe profits are something you get from doing things well, from doing things the right way. “So let’s focus on doing things well rather than focusing on the profit” is the message. Profit is a byproduct of all the rest. Profit comes from having high standards, pushing the envelope, not being satisfied with the status quo.

It also comes from having good people – up and down the ranks. Højgaard is proud that he’s surrounded by master mariners like himself – along with ex-captains, ex-chief engineers, naval architects and specialists in every conceivable area.

“We’re very much a technically focused ship management company,” he says. “Engineering and technology are in our DNA. We believe in science, in getting to the bottom of things, analyzing and sticking with the facts. Our clients value our technical expertise, our competencies and our experience. And they look to us for guidance on a whole range of issues, particularly the ongoing energy transition and the digital revolution.”

Further supporting this effort is an extensive base of training centers, particularly in India, that ensure an adequate supply of properly trained, fit-for-purpose seafarers. The first – the Anglo-Eastern Maritime Training Centre – was established in Mumbai in 2000. That was followed by the Anglo-Eastern Maritime Academy in 2009 and the state-of-the-art Anglo-Eastern Fleet Performance Centre in 2021, part of the digital revolution and designed to leverage data to improve overall fleet safety, performance and efficiency.

The company sources its seafarers mainly from India and the Philippines with roughly 70 percent from India and 20 percent from the Philippines.

“We’re very committed to continue to recruit 90 percent of our seafaring roster from those two countries,” Højgaard says. “We basically have a principle that we want a maximum of two nationalities on each ship. And the reason is our experience just shows it works better if there is a similar culture or two similar cultures rather than a whole host of different cultures. We recognize that DEI is very important these days, but I always say if you're in a meeting and everyone says the same, then you're definitely in the wrong meeting. But if you're in a meeting and everyone says something different, then you're probably also in the wrong meeting. So you've got to find a good middle ground, a balance.”

Proper training is just one component of Anglo-Eastern’s commitment to its seafarers. During the Covid crisis, it went above and beyond to ensure its crews were relieved on time and returned home on time. Sometimes that meant chartering flights because there were no scheduled flights available, or paying exorbitant sums for tickets on scheduled flights when they were available.

“We have an exceptionally good client base,” says Højgaard, “and almost all of them took the position that, come hell or high water, we’re going to get people on and off the ships when they’re due, even though it may cost a lot.”

Caring for its seafarers, and demonstrating that care by showing it had their backs during times of crisis. That’s what good ship managers do.

Navigating the Future

As the company celebrates its 50th year, Højgaard says his role is to make sure in the next ten years it continues doing the same quality ship management for the best and most discerning shipowners in the world. There’s no thought of branching out or doing different things.

“We’re a ship management company at the core,” he states, “and we’re going to continue to be that. The strategy is very much about staying in private hands under the guidance of the three major shareholding families.”

Given the changing nature of the industry and the ship management business, he anticipates business will continue to grow – perhaps at an accelerated pace – as more and more owners shift the increasing burden of managing their fleets to experienced and competent ship managers. Expanding and often conflicting regulations, the rapid pace of the energy transition and the digital revolution all contribute to the growing complexity of running ships.

It's a headache, all right, and more and more owners are recognizing the value proposition that ship management companies offer.

“It’s not very different than any other business,” explains Højgaard, “in the sense that if I can produce something for $80 that you think is worth $100, then if I sell it to you for $90, I get $10 and you get $10. It’s that simple, really. If I can provide a service to you that you think is more valuable than if you had to do it yourself, and if I can do it in a way that leverages the scale and the global presence and the depth of training centers and crewing centers that I have around the world, then it's a win-win situation.”

As Anglo-Eastern enters its second fifty years, the winning streak continues. – TME

Tony Munoz is Founder, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief of The Maritime Executive.