Team Tankers owners break with Jens Grønning
(Updated 11.08)
Jens Grønning spent around a year and a half as CEO of Team Tankers, formerly Eitzen Chemical. Now he has left the carrier, says Team Tankers International in a statement that does not go into further details about the CEO switch at the carrier. However, ShippingWatch has learned that it was not Jens Grønning's own decision to leave the carrier.
Grønning will be succeeded by Hans Feringa, who switches from Stolt-Nielsen's tanker carrier, Stolt Tankers, where he served as President. The statement informs that Hans Feringa will work from the Team Tankers' offices in Westport, Connecticut, which means that the carrier will no longer be based in Copenhagen, as has been the case so far under Jens Grønning. Moving the CEO could mean that the carrier's board of directors want to be closer to its Chief Executive.
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Team Tankers chairman Morten Arntzen has the following comment on the move:
"Under Jens' leadership, Team Tankers completed a comprehensive financial restructuring and established a solid operational model."
Following the restructuring, Team Tankers welcomed aboard several new major shareholders, including in particular US-based and British financial houses such as Barckleys Bank, Angelo Gordon & Company,Goldman Sachs, Solus Alternative Asset Management, GLG Partners and Cerberus European Investments.
And the efforts to secure a solid financial base was priority number one when Jens Grønning in the winter 2013 returned to what was then Eitzen Chemical. He had previously served seven years with the carrier.
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"We need to go out and refinance the company and bring in some more equity, in order to strengthen our capital base, but also to enable growth. There's no doubt that this is good timing, and I think there are many of us who believe that we're entering a low-cycle period now, and that chemical tank is also moving in the right direction. There's a definite narrowing going on between supply and demand, so this is an interesting time to start growing," Jens Grønning told ShippingWatch when he switched from Dubai-based chemical tanker carrier United Arab Chemical Carriers to Eitzen Chemical.
New company settled
Jens Grønning spent around one year focusing on securing debt plan for the carrier, and the first step in these plans was taken just prior to the new year, where 90 percent of the creditors in the carrier, listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange, approved a plan for the company's massive debt.
The plan was settled and finalized in late January this year, and the carrier used the same occasion to change its name from Eitzen Chemical to Team Tankers.
Chairman Morten Arntzen, former CEO of US-based tanker carrier OSG, is pleased to welcome Hans Feringa as new CEO. Hans Feringa will take over as new Chief Executive on September 1st. Morten Arntzen will head the carrier in the interim period.
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Eitzen Chemical settles debt restructuring plan
