FROM THE JULY 2000 MARINE LOG

Shipping veterans give
e-biz a maritime flavor

Bill Livanos (left in our picture) and Connor O'Brien (bright) have a take on the e-commerce marketplace that's a lot more exciting than what most of the competition seems to have in mind. You can now visit their site MaritimeDirect.com and judge for yourself. What sets the site apart from most marine e-commerce sites is that, at first, you might not realize that it is an e-commerce site. What you see has more of the feel of an information site than an on-line shopping mall.

The site is coming online in several phases. It aims to provide open access to complete web-supported decision-making tools, information, and e-commerce capabilities. Livanos and O'Brien say it will serve virtually the entire maritime industry and enable speed, simplicity and savings at no cost to client companies and users.
In its first phase the site will offer:

• Real-time content: Comprehensive information on the primary chartering markets in tankers, dry cargo, and container ships, as well as new buildings contracts, sale and purchase, demolition, and bunker markets. In addition, the site will include voyage and time charter fixture reporting and an Industry Forum inviting users to voice their opinions.
  
• Port Information: Pages for more than 3,000 ports provide easy Internet access to extensive and accurate current information including: port layout and navigation; port disbursement information; local time and exchange rates; local news and conditions, and a complete marketplace of all local suppliers.
  
• Local Market Partner Program: Enables supply companies (agents, bunker suppliers, chandlers, repairers, stevedores and other services) in local port markets to gain an additional presence and reach out prominently and directly to key purchasing decision makers around the globe.

THE TARGET MARKET
The target audience is freight customers, brokers, ship owners/managers, and others. It will provide direct access to essential information on key markets, 3,300 ports and 35,000 suppliers world wide, as well as e-commerce advantages and leading-edge Internet-enabled technologies.

"We are taking a long-term view of the dot-com market, making the up-front investment in technology and people, to build a world-class company," says O'Brien. He began developing the business and strategy in June 1999, partly based on experience managing controlling equity interests in several shipping companies with over seventy vessels. The founder of Stanton Capital, he was at Merill Lynch and Lehman Brothers in investment banking and M&A.
He has also had experience with a number of successful early stage internet investments in such diverse areas as digital book distribution and online auto loans. He invited Bill Livanos to join him as co-founder.

Livanos was eager to accept. A 30-year shipping industry veteran, he has seen shipping IT progress from phones and paper-ribbon telexes, through IBM mainframes, then faxes, computers and satcoms, to today. The internet? "We needed it," he says.
He was founder and CEO of Millenium Seacarriers, and previously president of Kedma Ltd. Prior to that he was technical director of Ceres Hellenic Shipping, at the time, the largest privately owned shipping fleet with over 200 tankers and dry bulk vessels.

MaritimeDirect says it is fully independently venture capital funded, with its primary venture capital partners in the U.S. and the U.K.

It already has a multinational staff of over 40 professionals, with offices in New York and Tokyo, and plans for additional offices in London, Singapore and Piraeus.
One of MaritimeDirect's core information assets is more than 10,000 pages of targeted, easy-to-use, up-to-date, port-specific information essential for decision-making.

"Although all in-port suppliers will be listed on individual port pages, the advantageous presence, leading to e-commerce will be reserved for local market partners," says Asbjorn Finsnes, director of product development. Prior to joining MaritimeDirect, Finsnes-a native of Stavanger, Norway-spent several years as managing partner of Agences Maritimes Pomme, headquartered in Marseilles, France, with a team of 80 people handling over 2,000 ship calls annually.
"Once we attract the industry to our daily resources to support their decision-making, we will introduce a whole series of e-commerce transaction services," explains O'Brien. The e-commerce services, he says, will make it easier for marine professionals "to meet their daily transaction needs and see the tangible results of saving time and money."
"There are more than half a million professionals in the maritime industry who make 20-to-30 decisions a day for which they need, and don't usually have, timely information," says Livanos. "We provide that information, and we add access to a choice of suppliers. We will continue to invest heavily to buy, build and upgrade both the information resources and the supplier data."

CROWDED MARKET, BUT FEW STORES ARE YET OPEN
MaritimeDirect is entering a market that seems to be getting more crowded each day. Ironically, though, there are still very few locations on the web where any actual maritime e-commerce is yet taking placing. Many of the new marine dot-coms made a big splash at this year's Posidonia trade show in Greece. Well, Posidonia has come and gone and most of the sites are still in a preview mode. Maybe that's because getting a maritime e-business site up and running is a fairly complex undertaking.
By some estimates, there are around 70 companies vying to succeed as maritime e-commerce "portals." Start up costs can run from $10 to $25 million and one estimate is that some $250 million has already been invested. If all the 70 would-be maritime portals raise this sort of level of investment, then the total could reach $1.25 billion.

With some would be high-flyers looking set to fail before they ever open up for business, it's safe to predict that the attrition rate in the business is going to be high.

Nonetheless, there are some serious contenders in the race. Among these is OneSea. One major shipowner who is backing OneSea is AP Møller/Maersk Group, which has taken a financial stake in the venture. The deal is part of OneSea's second round of funding. AP Møller/Maersk Group has a total fleet of more than 200 vessels, They include containerships, tankers, supply ships, drilling rigs, bulk and special vessels. Maersk joins an already impressive list of industrial backers for OneSea initiative that includes World-wide, V.Ships, Bergesen, TeeKay, R.S. Platou, Jebsen and Leif Hoegh.

OneSea CEO Arvid G.Bergvall says: "Industrial support and investment is key to OneSea's strategy of becoming the dominant e-commerce initiative for the maritime industry. We are very pleased to be able to add the AP Møller/Maersk Group to our investor list, and tap the wealth of expertise within the group in order to build first class software solutions for the industry."
Getting support from shipowners is one part of the maritime e-commerce equation. The other is getting support from suppliers. Here, too, OneSea has recently reached an agreement with a significant partner: ISSA (the International Ship Suppliers Association). OneSea says the agreement will give it unique access to more than 1,800 marine suppliers.
ISSA members supply over 38,000 different product lines every year to world shipping, ranging from consumables through to anchors spares and deck-fittings. Its members are located in 81 countries worldwide. ML

Highlights of the print MARINE LOG

Marine Log home