what is Ship Broking?

A Shipbroker is a person or entity who arranges transportation of goods by sea arranges employment of a vessel or sells and buys ships on behalf of her clients. A shipbroker acts as an intermediary between ship owners and charterers or the buyers and sellers of ships.

A shipbroker maybe part of a ship broking department in the principal’s own organization, or part of a separate company within which individual brokers tend to specialize as owner’s or charterer’s brokers.

There can be an extended ‘chain’ of brokers (occasionally only one) between the two principals. Each broker involved in the negotiations receives a commission on the gross freight or hire earned by the ship owner.

Various shipping business activities which now operate under the general heading of ship broking, may be divided into three main “disciplines”:

• Dry cargo chartering
• Tanker chartering
• Ship sale and purchase

The actions that a Shipbroker takes during the negotiations and servicing is different for each single voyage. Bear in mind that the process of “fixing” a vessel definitely takes more than 1 day, some running into a few weeks depending on the urgency of the deal. But considering the fact that a Shipbroker works with many clients and many contracts simultaneously, the daily operations could include all items from this list

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