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Live from Posidonia

Newport Shipping expands with new offices in Athens, New York, Shanghai

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Newport Shipping Group has opened new offices in Athens, New York, and Shanghai as part of the company’s “near customer, near market” efforts, expanding its presence in key ship owning and ship repair communities around the world.

The London-headquartered company has existing offices in Istanbul and Singapore.

A key aspect of the group’s expansion is to ensure that shipowners with operations in all the major maritime hubs have easy access to its unique ship repair and financing capabilities.

Speaking during Posidonia, the world's most prestigious shipping trade event, in Athens, the home of the one of the biggest ship owning communities, ceo Erol Sarikaya said: “The shipping industry requires global capabilities and is dependent on personal relationships. Having offices in key maritime locations means we have local people, with local knowledge on the ground in daily contact with ship owners and shipyards. We have excellent teams in place in each market we serve.”

The Athens, Istanbul, Shanghai, and Singapore offices are focused on customers’ ship repair and technical needs while New York and the London headquarters manage Newport’s corporate and international operations.

Commenting on the ship repair market, Sarikaya said: “The industry is undergoing tremendous change. The introduction of mandatory requirements to reduce shipping’s impact on the environment, in particular, will have a significant material impact on most ship owners. 

“While the larger players are likely to have capital in place for retrofitting ballast water treatment systems, scrubbers and other compliant systems, or to invest in newbuilds, the reality is that ship owners with smaller, older fleets – those that make up the majority of the world fleet – will benefit greatly by minimizing working capital costs in an already capital-intensive industry.

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“We can support these small to medium-sized operators by financing their retrofits, while they benefit further from the opportunities presented through our cooperation shipyards within the lower cost regions of the Pacific/Atlantic trading zones.”

Sarikaya added: “With offices in strategic shipping locations around the world, together with ship repair facilities in China, Turkey, Indonesia and Singapore, all shipowners, big or small, now have comprehensive servicing and financing options available to them for their drydocking and equipment retrofits. We cooperate with highly-skilled and cost-competitive shipyards that can serve owners globally.”

Newport Shipping plans to open offices in other locations and announce new cooperation agreements in coming months.