Top 10 shipmanagers 2025
- Third-party shipmanagers need scale as well as quality to survive as shipping becomes more complex
- Finding a compelling case for owners to outsource remains the key difficulty
Most shipmanagers will tell you quality is a better measure than fleet size alone; but increasing demands of training and keeping crew, advising on greener shipping and newbuildings, and improving diversity suggest size still matters
01 / Bjorn Hojgaard, Anglo-Eastern
Shipping is becoming more complex, and Anglo-Eastern is responding with it. 2025 brought significant uncertainty, with changing regulations and tariffs being the biggest topics. Anglo-Eastern reflagged certain vessels in response to tariffs, though always at the owner’s discretion.
The company manages more than 50 dual-fuel vessels of various fuels, with 87 under newbuilding and project management. Highlights include Windcat Rotterdam (IMO: 9995337), a next-generation offshore support vessel, as well as the first wind-assisted aframax, Brands Hatch (IMO: 1034199), and two ammonia-ready newcastlemaxes.
In 2025, Anglo-Eastern launched Sustainability and Performance Services, combining environmental compliance and performance services to help owners, charterers and operators. It boasts that its tools have saved a combined 225,000 tonnes of fuel, or $135m.
Anglo-Eastern set a 2030 target for 30% of its officers to be promoted to management before turning 30, to speed up certifications earlier in their careers.
02 / Tommy Olofsen, OSM Thome
Norway’s OSM Thome heads into 2026 under the new leadership of group managing director Tommy Olofsen, following the retirement in November 2025 of chief executive Finn Amund Norbye.
The 2023 mega-merger of OSM Maritime Group and Singapore’s Thome Ship Management created a giant with more than 1,000 ships under management, employing some 30,000 seafarers, from 20 offices around the world.
Asset manager Oaktree, which bought into OSM Maritime Group in 2018, sold its stake to JP Morgan Asset Management in August. OSM founder Bjørn Tore Larsen and Skagerak Holding, owned by the Eek Thorstensen family that founded Thome, continue to have “significant ownership stakes” in OSM Thome.
03 / René Kofod-Olsen, V.Group
René Kofod-Olsen takes issue with calling V.Group a mere technical manager, preferring “global shipping services company”. What matters is not the number of ships under management, he says, but “the quality that we are delivering on those ships”.
That said, with 900 ships in its fleet — and sizeable services and digital divisions expected to stand on their own two feet — V.Group is in a good position.
Kofod-Olsen says scale is increasingly important in his business as the industry gets more complex. Shipmanagers running 50 or fewer ships are fighting an uphill battle, he warned in November 2025.
V.Group is working with tanker company International Seaways to make ships more female-friendly. Kofod-Olsen said diversity was a “must-win battle for the entire industry”.
04 / Jesper Kristensen, Synergy Marine
Jesper Kristensen joined as Synergy’s group chief executive in March, after 34 years at Unifeeder, and succeeding long-time leader Rajesh Unni.
Company highlights over the past 12 months included a carbon capture refit on an LR1 tanker, one of the first in its class, and converting a 30-year-old liquefied natural gas carrier into a modern floating storage and regasification unit.
The company is expanding into managing methanol-fuelled containerships for an Asian shipowner and formed a joint venture with a Norwegian operator of geared bulkers.
A sea training institute in India will open in 2026 with capacity for 500 trainees a year. The group also expects more consolidation among mid-tier managers as compliance, digital and ESG requirements intensify.
05 / Sebastian von Hardenberg, Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement
Hamburg-based BSM strengthened its expertise in the LNG segment, when its LNG specialty arm Pronav took on management of the FSRU Turquoise P (IMO: 9823883) in the Aegean Sea near Izmir, Turkey.
BSM took on the first methanol vessel, has 50 ships with LNG engines, and announced it will manage the world’s first ammonia bunkering vessel.
It has six maritime training centres — the most recent opened in Ghana in August — as well as 10 shipmanagement centres and 28 crew service centres. The company employs 40,000 crew and 2,000 people on shore.
06 / Rajalingam Subramaniam, Fleet Management
Fleet Management is part of Hong Kong’s Caravel Group, led by commodity trading legend Harry Banga and his son Angad Banga.
2025 was its first year under managing director Rajalingam Subramaniam, who joined from Malaysian shipowner MISC in January.
It opened its first Athens office that month, and in March acquired the International Maritime Institute, a training centre in Noida, India. It is expanding in Japan and the Philippines, where it opened an enlarged crewing and training facility in the capital Manila.
The company has 620 ships under technical management (300 bulkers, 220 tankers and 100 containerships and PCTCS), with another 130 newbuildings in the pipeline.
07 / Mark O’Neil, Columbia
Columbia Group has expanded across its integrated maritime, logistics, leisure, and energy and offshore services platform in 2025.
The company got into the FuelEU Maritime pooling business through its EmissionsLink platform, hoping to capitalise on confusion over emissions rules — especially since the International Maritime Organization Net-Zero Framework delay, which the company warned could lead to overlapping regional rules.
Columbia formed a JV in 2025 with Egypt’s Pan Marine Shipping Services, saying this will let it work more closely with local talent and institutions.
08 / Haakon Lenz, Wilhelmsen Ship Management
Norway’s Wilhelmsen Ship Management, celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2025, is now under the leadership of Haakon Lenz, following the retirement of chief executive Carl Schou.
The company has come a long way since it was born out of the Hong Kong liner service Barber Blue Seas in 1975.
Lenz has said having just over 300 vessels is about where the company needs to be, if it is to make the most of efficiencies while keeping in touch with customers and seafarers.
The company hopes to convince owners of the benefits of third-party shipmanagement by helping deal with more complicated regulations.
09 / Guo Jinkui, Seacon Shipping Group
China’s Seacon Shipping has continued to grow steadily, with notable progress in crew-only management in 2025. The company attributes this to enhanced crew training, especially for LNG and car carriers.
The company has also got into the ship leasing business, acquiring 40% of CIMC Xinde Leasing, and establishing the first FuelEU compliance pool in China.
Seacon says it has also recently developed a “Seacon-AI” model to enhance its capability and efficiency. Approval from the China Classification Society has also been gained for its new shipmanagement software platform.
10 / John Rowley, Wallem
Hong Kong-based Wallem celebrated 100 years of being based in the city, where it moved 22 years after its founding in Norway by shipbroker and agent Haakon ‘Typhoon’ Wallem in 1903.
Wallem plans to stick around in Hong Kong for another century by prioritising safety, quality and sustainable growth while adapting to technological changes and decarbonisation.
The company has been owned since 2006 by Tom Steckmest, the founder’s great-grandson, and Nigel Hill, Wallem’s current chairman.
This list is part of the Lloyd’s List One Hundred People 2025 (Edition 16) that will be published from December 8
The Top 10 shipmanagers ranking is based on total fleet under full technical management derived from data provided by the companies and public sources
