The last year has been a challenging one for the world's
shipping industry. The global financial crisis, the sudden change
in attitude of lenders and the fall in shipping freight rates (and
corresponding decline in ship values) has made it more difficult
for participants in the shipping markets to obtain the finance and
capital needed to operate their business. As the availability of
traditional sources of finance has dried up, attention has started
to shift again towards investment funds, private equity and
alternative sources of funding to help fill the gaps.
The story of the shipping markets over the last five years has
been a remarkable one. The prolonged period of boom, combined with
readily available debt finance at relatively low cost, attracted
investors new to the industry with limited experience of its
cyclical nature. The buoyant credit markets supported the idea that
owning a ship with a long term charter was, to an extent, a means
of replicating a fixed
