Newsroom Blog
What's in a name?
By Lloyds List Comment
Wednesday 27 January 2010
MODERN business spends billions on the nebulous concept of branding in the hope that profits can be derived from positive associations in the mind of the consumer and increased exposure.
When it comes to shipping, however, the direct opposite approach is more common. A brief glance at the top 10 tanker charterers reveals a few familiar names, but oil giants by and large tend to name their shipping arms anything but their public brand names.
This of course is not a recent phenomena. Ever since the Exxon Valdez created what marketeers would refer to as a negative association in the public’s perception of oil shipping, energy companies have been keen to distance themselves from anything that could potentially sink their reputation further.
Exxon can now be more easily recognised by its shipping affiliate International Marine Transportation and Total, which went through its own identity crisis in the wake of the Erika casualty, feature more publicly on charter documents as CSSA.
Other sectors are, if anything, worse when it comes to transparency. Read off a list of the top 10 dry bulk charterers to your average member of the public and it is unlikely you will see even a flicker of recognition despite the multi-billion dollar associations that go with them.
But it is not only charterers that are careful with their names.
Tracking down the beneficial ownership of a ship is more often than not a deliberately difficult task that would confuse the combined forces of the world’s intelligence agencies, financial investigators and the most determined of tax inspectors.
When Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines hived off the majority of its assets into the newly formed Hafiz Darya Shipping, it made clear that it had done so as part of its privatisation process and not as a crude mechanism to escape sanctions. The name change, however, is likely to arouse interest given the political sensitivities that the line is currently having to deal with.
Ship and company names are changed regularly for perfectly legitimate reasons, but this fluid approach to identity can often raise eyebrows.
Despite regular gripes about the industry’s absent public profile, bar oily birds, cruiseships and one-size fits all descriptions of supertankers, shipping still does not do itself any favours when it comes to transparency.
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