About Us

We offer unique access to the maritime world through our exclusive network of ship brokers and owners

History

European Maritime Finance (EMF) was founded in 2014 as a trading division of SIPA Group SA in Switzerland.

The objective was to create a bridge between ship owners seeking to raise capital and professional investors who wanted to take advantage of the then cyclical lows in the tanker markets.

Working closely with well established shipowners and fleet operators, investors have been able to participate directly in various secondhand acquisition projects in both tankers and dry bulkers.

After several successful years, in 2018, the division was restructured and effectively split in two; European Maritime Finance A/S was established in Denmark and the original trading division was rebranded SIPA Maritime.

The deciding factor for establishing the Copenhagen based headquarters was the growing client base in Scandinavia – and our ambition to accelerate the growth. Through a local presence, we are better suited to service clients throughout the Nordic region.

Business

We are a corporate finance company, focused on introducing qualified investors to direct investments in commercial vessels.

We provide a generalized approach, presenting vessel types at a conceptual level, which allows potential investors to evaluate the market, before there is an actual investment project. This approach allows us to build a book of potential investors in specific classes, such that when the market provides an actual opportunity, all parties are ready to act.

Depending on the client’s requirements and the actual project, we can assist in providing in-depth due diligence, creating corporate structures, administrating projects and performing the day to day administration. We offer projects of two main categories in shipping with different risk/return profiles;

Asset play/joint venture projects where the timing in relation to ship/vessel values, rates and forecast are the deciding factors.
Financial projects with focus on debt and equity kickers.

Our current portfolio of projects is well diversified and covers different structures within traditional industrial direct shipping investments throughout the shipping segments.

We focus on asset play/joint ventures with leading ship owners within the given segment of the investment. Our projects operate with an annual budgeted return on equity between 10% and 25% p.a. The market and operating risk is reduced, because of the operating parties (ship owner) exposure in our projects.

An asset play, joint venture investment has historically greater risk than financial investments. Shipping markets are volatile which result in high returns to the investors when the timing is correct. Risk towards the technical operations, rates and the vessel’s value is however always present. We consider asset plays when the timing is appropriate and the risk is manageable.

We also consider direct investments in shipping to be an intelligent way to diversify qualified investors investment portfolios.