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Is it really the right time to buy ships?

Is it really the right time to buy ships?
It is the trickiest of all business decisions: catching the falling knife of the bottom of the market. It would seem though that an increasing number of shipowners believe that point is coming around now.

The week before last talking to shipyard officials in South Korea they reported an increase in enquiry levels across a number of vessel types, in particular product tankers, very large containerships and LNG carriers.

Their comments are being backed up with some serious activity at the beginning of this week. On Monday alone we ran stories on Petredec ordering up to four VLGCs at Hyundai Heavy Industries, China Shipping Development and Mitsui OSK Lines in for six LNG carriers at Hudong-Zhonghua for $1.5bn and China Shipping Container Line (CSCL) lining up to order five 18,000 teu mega-boxships in Korea.

Looking through headlines from the previous couple of weeks we have seen aggressive Greek shipowner Navios Group pick-up a mix of 10 product tankers and containerships through distressed asset sales. It also marks Navios first foray into the container sector.

We also saw Danish shipowner Norden talking up the opportunities to renew its dry bulk fleet with newbuilding orders ahead of an expected market upturn in 2015. Fellow Dane and former Torm ceo Mikael Skov, now ceo of Tankers Inc. is eyeing a number of deals this year to grow his relatively new venture.

Over in Taiwan Wisdom Marine has ordered nine bulkers last week at hard pressed yards in Japan.

These are not the only examples and many others are looking seriously at opportunities in the market.

There are plenty of reasons to believe this is the bottom of the market. Newbuilding prices are already at some of their lowest levels in modern times and below shipyard profitability levels. The existing orderbook is being run down so as a result light can be seen at the end of the tunnel for demand and supply numbers in a many sectors.

Is this the right time to catch the falling knife? Well only time will tell. But is clear that markets are getting very close to, if not at the bottom, and if you have cash or investment possibilities some very interesting opportunities are available in the market.