Ship owners must realise that shipmanagement and crewmanagement fees need to increase otherwise the majority of professional managers will become reluctant to take on more ships for management, according to Ole Stene, President of the ship managers association InterManager.
Claiming that ship owners still had to recognise the valuable role that third party managers play in today’s shipping industry, Ole Stene complained that owners still “did not want to pay the fees that managers’ deserve for taking care of their assets”.
He added: “I have not seen much improvement in the management fee structures since it first started to be debated in the media and when you see how the shipping market has improved coupled with the concerns we have on recruiting and manning and taking care of the asset value of the ships, we are surprised owners are not prepared to share their fortune with us in taking care of their ships.”
Despite this reticence on the part of the owners, he claimed it was inevitable that fees would rise and that owners would start to realise they have to invest in manning but also in paying for the management services they are receiving.
“It is becoming more difficult for ship owners themselves to recruit the right shipmanagement resource. In a way it is the third party managers who control those people who will be eventually employed as superintendents ashore. If a ship owner, particularly asset players, goes out into the market to try and hire superintendents or crew managers, he will find he has a huge problem attracting the right people,” he added.
