Page 27 - Next Generation 2015 - Digtial Issue
P. 27
Next Generation Europe
keen to prove himself in his own right. an integrated investment and vessel hitherto unpublicised holding company,
After the inevitable shipping, trade management firm, working on behalf of which by that point had acquired 27
and finance master’s degree at Cass both private and institutional investors. vessels in nine separate transactions,
Business School, he started his career with an investment of more than $100m.
at Tufton Oceanic and Dresdner Bank, After spending the first months of its
before founding his own brokerage, existence lining up finance, it debuted as Among its fleet are nine feeder-sized
Toepfer & Co. a shipowner with the acquisition of two boxships that had been dumped by
chemtankers at auction in January 2011. Germany’s Commerzbank as part of its
After that, he became managing The company has since branched out drive to exit shipping.
director of Allocean, a UK and Singapore- into containerships, picking up tonnage
based subsidiary of Australian investment through forced sales. Yet despite the secrecy with which
house Allco that owned and managed this coup was carried off, Mr Toepfer
60 vessels. His latest project is Borealis In August last year, it was revealed himself is notably media friendly, with
Maritime, which he started in 2010 as that Borealis and US investment firm a decidedly informal open-neck shirt
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts had built a personal manner.
Academic ‘Professor Doctor Erdmann’ is not the
typical German shipping guy; he hasn’t worked
his way up the industry ladder, man and boy
Germany lecturer for the MBA programme at Another younger Rickmers
Mark-Ken Erdmann the HHL Leipzig Graduate School of employee to watch out for is Mr
Management since 2007, where he is Erdmann’s boss, chief executive Ignace
NOT everyone in this supplement is chair of accounting and auditing. van Meenen.
set to inherit a shipping company
from their parents. Rickmers’ chief Not the typical German shipping Belgian by birth, he is likely to
financial officer Mark-Ken Erdmann guy, then. But it is clear he was hired be the only non-German to head an
may be a hired manager, but is widely to think outside the box, and has important German shipping concern.
seen as someone to watch, thanks to adopted financial techniques that are
the way he has handled the company’s pioneering in local terms.
transformation drive in recent years.
The most obvious example is the
More surprising still, he hasn’t issue of a domestic high-yield bond
even worked his way up the industry in 2013, a step that looks less clever in
ladder, man and boy. Born in Tokyo retrospect, given what has happened to
and raised in Asia and Europe, he German bond yields in the interim, but
graduated in economics and, in true which Mr Erdmann insists was the right
German style, his time in academia thing to do at the time.
has earned him the right to be formally
addressed as ‘Professor Doctor He has also overseen the
Erdmann’. restructuring of something like $1.4bn
worth of debt, and has helped establish
He started his career with Ernst collaborations with US financial
& Young and there followed a stint at interests.
German media giant Bertelsmann. In
July 2012, he started as deputy chief Rickmers now has its sights set on
financial officer at Rickmers and took a possible initial public offering in the
up his current role in May last year. US, with the stated intent of emulating
the Seaspan/Danaos/Costamare
Still in his early-40s, Mr business model of long-term fixed rate
Erdmann also spent time at top-notch charters, with a likely US listing to boot.
institutions Insead and the Harvard
Business School, and has been visiting
www.lloydslist.com | Lloyd’s List Next Generation 2015 | 27
