Wilhelmsen Ship Management: Tradition, Expertise & Competence in ship management

The Wilhelmsen Group is a family owned company and at the moment the fifth (5th) generation is the one who manages it, said Carl Schou, CEO and President of Wilhelmsen Ship Management, talking to Maritimes.gr in the context of a seminar organized in cooperation with the Embassy of Norway.

More specifically, the Group deals mainly with three sectors. The first is maritime services such as full ship management, the second is new forms of energy, such as offshore wind farms, autonomous ships, digitalization and the third one is investments (financial investments) which concern family or private shipping companies.

Regarding the group’s presence in Greece, he noted that there are several collaborations with Greek shipowners and the seminar held recently in Piraeus was intended both to strengthen its reputation and to invite Greek shipowners to get to know the group and the services it provides. Regarding the new “green” regulations, Mr. Schou said, it is a long-term target, but many innovations are being considered through new fuels (such as hydrogen, ammonia, etc.), which Wilhelmsen group is also researching. The question, as he said, is how the supply of these (new fuels) will be done and which fuel will eventually prevail.

Generally, he concluded that Greece has a strong maritime tradition and the Group fully respects Greek family shipping companies and managers. Wilhelmsen Shipmanagement, due to its size, experience and expertise, can help both the smallest and the largest shipping companies, where due to the high requirements that exist now, the cost of management is really high. Particularly, Mr. Schou said “Wilhelmsen Shipmanagement has the size and the economy of scale, we offer competence, expertise and this is our competitive advantage. We are big enough but at the same time small, where both smaller companies and larger shipping companies could join us. We already cooperate with small and large shipping companies”.