Investing in Maritime Assets and Related Energy and Commodities Markets

Andy Tuchman: 

Thanks so much for having me, Elana. 

Elana Margulies-Snyderman: 

Absolutely, Andy. So, to kick off the conversation, tell us a little about the firm and how you got to where you are today. 

Andy Tuchman: 

Sure. So, Clear Ocean first took its real outside capital in 2019 when we bought a company called WOMAR Tankers, a tanker management platform that at the time ran 22 ships. You can think of a tanker management company as somewhat analogous to a property management firm in real estate. Not a perfect analogy, but it's good enough for this conversation. It doesn't own any of its own ships, but it manages ships on behalf of third parties. We thought this would be sort of an optimal entry into shipping as it allows us a wide-reaching access to build relationships, obtain information, and then enable efficient future execution on asset transactions for a really small price since we're only buying a services company as opposed to real physical assets. Subsequently to buying WOMAR in 2019, we found the tanker asset markets themselves setting up nicely for an investment in 2021. So, that's when we launched our first investment vehicle to purchase tankers. We then launched an additional tanker investment vehicle in each of 2022 and 2023. The tanker investment thesis started playing out and so we then pivoted to recycle that playbook into other sectors of the maritime space. And so, in 2024, we built a dry bulk operating platform underneath WOMAR, which is called AXIOM WOMAR and we also bought a controlling stake in an offshore service vessel platform called GEOS, Golden Energy Offshore Services. And subsequent to building slash buying those additional operating capabilities, we raised our fourth investment vehicle, fourth asset fund, and that was for offshore vessels, in 2024 that we just recently closed. 

Elana Margulies-Snyderman: 

Andy, given your focus on investing in maritime assets, love to hear your high-level outlook for this year in the space. 

Andy Tuchman: 

So, since the different sectors within the maritime space are both uncorrelated to each other and to general global markets, there's almost always a sector or subsector that you can find attractive opportunities in. The really hard part is being able to transact efficiently and effectively in those niche subsectors. And so that's why we spent 2024 building out our capabilities in other maritime sectors. So, we started with tankers, we built dry bulk and bought offshore, and then now we're planning to capitalize on that infrastructure that we have and we're raising our fifth and sixth asset funds in 2025, an additional offshore one, and then our first dry bulk one. 

Elana Margulies-Snyderman: 

Andy, as a follow-up to what you just mentioned about what you're going to be investing in, love to hear more details on some of the specific greatest opportunities you see in those spaces and why. 

Andy Tuchman: 

Yeah, so things can change really quickly in the maritime sector, but right now we think offshore is the most attractive sector. We deployed capital into that sector in 2024. We expect to continue to do so through 2025. It's a little bit difficult to look out further than that, but for right now we think the offshore sector is really, really attractive. We also consistently see opportunities to what's called time charter in vessels, which is sort of maritime lingo for leasing. So, we can time charter in vessels for anything from one to three years. It's kind of like leasing a vessel and then you expect to trade it achieving earnings higher than the lease payments that you're making. We've been doing this with our own internal capital for the last five, six years, and in Q1 will be launching a new vehicle to enable outside investors to take advantage of this as well. 

Elana Margulies-Snyderman: 

Andy, on the other hand, what are some of the greatest challenges you face in your space and why? 

Andy Tuchman: 

So, there's a couple really big challenges in the maritime space. The first is the volatility. The asset class has tremendous volatility and being able to weather those volatilities is incredibly important, both on the upside and on the downside. And then of course there's the exogenous risks that if I could bucket them into two broad categories, they'd be geopolitical and environmental. These are risks that you really have no control over, you can't hedge, you're at the whim of these things happening. And so, we spend a tremendous amount of time in our investment analysis really carefully structuring and managing our investments so that not only can we weather these storms when they arise, but that we can also take advantage of opportunities that will inevitably arise when these storms come. So not only playing defense but setting ourselves up to be able to play offense in the downside. 

Elana Margulies-Snyderman: 

Andy, we've covered a lot of ground today and wanted to see if you have any final thoughts you'd like to share with us. 

Andy Tuchman: 

So, on the investment side, as I mentioned, we're really focused on the offshore sector and bringing in outside capital for time charters across the maritime asset class right now. On the corporate side, we're really focused on building out our team. We've experienced a lot of growth in the last few years, and so we're looking to hire three, four more people this year on the investment side. And then personally in the immediate future, my partner and I will both be at iConnections in Miami at the end of the month. 

Elana Margulies-Snyderman: 

Andy, I wanted to thank you so much for sharing your perspective with our listeners. 

Andy Tuchman: 

Thanks so much for having me, Elana. I really appreciate it. 

Elana Margulies-Snyderman: 

And thank you for listening to the EisnerAmper podcast series. Visit eisneramper.com for more information on this and a host of other topics. And join us for our next EisnerAmper podcast when we get down to business. 

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