Shipping post-Lehman not as bad as the 1980s: Clarksons

Shipping post-Lehman not as bad as the 1980s: Clarksons
Sam Chambers September 14th, 2018 https://splash247.com/shipping-post-lehman-not-as-bad-as-the-1980s-clark...

Stephen Gordon, managing director of Clarksons Research, has had his say on the decade since Lehman Brothers collapsed. Tomorrow marks the 10th anniversary since the US’s fourth largest investment bank went bankrupt, sparking the global financial crisis and a dire period for the shipping industry.

Gordon suggested, however, that as bad as the last 10 years had been, they were not as bad as shipping’s recession of the 1980s.

‘[A]lthough the shipping recession has felt prolonged, it’s been far from a ‘dead’ decade with surprising upside at times,” Gordon wrote in the latest weekly report from Clarksons Research.

Even in 2009, capesize earnings rose to $70,000 a day as China’s steel output yo-yoed, Gordon observed. There were also spikes in LNG (2012), LPG (2014-5), tankers (2015) and offshore (2013-14); and heavy newbuild ordering (2010, 2013) and record years for S&P (2017).

“[P]lenty of business has been done, helped by low interest rates,” Gordon observed.

Gordon concluded suggesting the container sector has had the most pain over the past 10 years, but he told readers to spare a thought for the bankers.

Read Splash’s own take on the decade post-Lehman here (https://splash247.com/how-shipping-has-changed-since-lehman-brothers-col...).