The Lloyd’s List Podcast: Emanuele Grimaldi on waiting for the world to restart
Listen to the latest edition of Lloyd’s List’s weekly podcast — your free weekly briefing on the stories shaping shipping
Italian shipowner Emanuele Grimaldi is our return guest on the podcast this week. He talks candidly about waiting for the world to restart in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, why he has launched antitrust complaints against the governments he feels are distorting the marketplace and the persistently troubling subject of roro safety in the wake of yet another care deck fire, this time aboard Grimaldi’s ro-Pax vessel Cruise Bonaria.
TOUGH markets come as standard for shipowners right now regardless of your sector or size, but for those operators used to hauling cars which are no longer being built and passengers who are currently locked down at home, the pause button has been firmly pressed on normal operations.
Nearly a third of the global car carrying fleet was floating idled at the peak of the conoronavirus outbreak as global car production halted completely virtually overnight.
Our podcast guest this week is a return guest, Emanuele Grimaldi, one of the co-owners of Italy’s Grimaldi Group, which operates a significant fleet of car carriers and roro ferries.
As he put it in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal – “We are waiting for the World to restart” – a sentiment no doubt shared by many of his peers.
In this week’s interview we talk about his expectations for a recovery, but we also explore why he has felt it necessary to launch antitrust complaints against the governments he feels are distorting the marketplace by bailing out weak shipping lines at the expense of those operating in the same trades that are well capitalised.
We also touch on the subject of roro safety in the wake of yet another care deck fire, this time aboard Grimaldi’s ro-Pax vessel Cruise Bonaria. Although the incident was not a serious one, a recent spate of fires has raised safety concerns and reignited Mr Grimaldi’s long standing concerns regarding safety rules, cargo misdeclaration and electrical issues that responsible for the vast majority of fires board these types of vessels.
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