SSY’s Greek ambitions

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Simpson Spence Young (SSY) has made a major move into the Greek marketplace as part of a long-term investment strategy to build out its forward orderbook, combining newbuildings and S&P with long-term period and projects.

Expanding their S&P division has been a key focus for the global shipbroker and has seen it open a new office in Greece as well as acquire Piraeus-based Anchor Shipbroking Inc specialists in S&P which is offering a full range of services to their global network of clients.

Mark Richardson, Chairman of SSY, said: "We are very pleased to open SSY Hellas, and to have our brokers present in Athens. It has long been part of our plans to have local representation in one of the most significant shipping locations in the world, and we look forward to hopefully seeing more of our clients in 2022."

Based in Glyfada, on Athens south coast, the new office is being managed by SSY Dry Cargo Broker Nicholas Vamvakaris and currently includes teams from the dry cargo division who focus on cape, panamax and the handy/supramax markets. 

Expanding their S&P division has been a key focus for the organisation and in 2021 SSY announced that Toby English would be joining the firm to head up the global S&P department which has teams based across the world. The Anchor team will join SSY’s dry cargo team in the new Glyfada office.

“We are very excited to be growing our global S&P presence with the addition of the Anchor team. The Greek market is a crucial part of our S&P activities, and Anchor will be an invaluable addition to this, enabling us to provide a more dynamic service to our clients across a number of sectors,” said English.

Richardson said: “This is an exciting time for us as we continue to grow and look for further acquisitions to expand the SSY team.”

Stanko Jekov, Global Head of Dry Cargo, said the company is always looking for new opportunities to develop and expand into new territories and markets. “Being in Athens not only provides us with the ability to better support our clients there, but also enables us to be part of a community that has been at the core of shipping throughout history."

SSY Hellas Ltd is based in the Marshall Islands and joins the SSY network of offices in London, Singapore, Houston, Shanghai, Stamford, Sydney, Geneva, Bergen, Hong Kong, New York, Mumbai, Madrid, Oslo, Sao Paulo, Copenhagen, Tokyo, Vancouver, Dubai, Varna and Zug and joins the already some 100 shipbroker companies to already operating in the Greek cluster.