New HK shipmanager Langton aims for the personal touch

2014-08-30

There is a new kid on the block in Hong Kong’s ship management scene in the shape of Langton Shipping Group, which will soon have four vessels on its books.

Langton is headed up by group managing director Michael Birley, previously from Wallem, and is offering both commercial management and shipmanagement, as well as consultancy.

Birley, a shipbroker by profession, will run the commercial management side of the business, and is joined by Laxman Kumar and Rajesh Gadhia, both also ex-Wallem, as joint managing directors of Langton Shipmanagement.

On the ship management side the company currently has one 4,500 dwt tanker, and a sistership will be joining in September. October will see Langton added two panamax bulkers, one a newbuilding and one three years old, which will be on charter to K Line.

Being a small, new company Birley explained to Seatrade Global that they do not have large overheads and all the IT they will be using will be new so there will not issues with integrating legacy systems. “Hopefully those are savings we can pass on to our customers. The intention is to provide a quality service at an overall price that is very competitive,” he said.

In common with other ship managers Langton sees smaller owners having difficulties keeping up with the pace of regulation and this is driving demand for third party ship management.

“We’re coming at it from the service point of view. A lot of small owners are finding it difficult to keep up with the regulatory environment, flag-state, local requirements and they’re looking for something where the people they initially meet will be the same people looking after ship day-to-day not somebody down the line,” Birley explained.

He noted that it was the “personal side” of the business that excited him.

Looking ahead the company’s offices in Sheung Wan in Hong Kong have plenty of room for expansion and the aim is to be managing more than 20 ships December 2015.

Source from : Seatrade Global

HEADLINES