Torm leader puzzled by stock decline
SHIPPING: The CEO of D/S Torm Mikael Skov is not satisfied with the decline in stock value of the shipping company. The price dropped by almost 2/3 last year and came to a hold at 63 DKK. Mikael Skov believes that the investors are defining all the shipping companies as one, even though there is great difference in their areas of operation.
"We are not satisfied with the stock price. I know that one is supposed to say this, but I can honestly say, that we are not. There is no doubt that, just because our stock is a part of the shipping sector, there has been little or no differentiation between companies with product tankers, crude oiltankers and bulk carriers", says Mikael Skov to the daily Borsen.
Mikael Skov believes that Torm has been associated too much with the shipping companies in the volatile dry cargo market, which this autumn collapsed due to the financial crisis. Torm is primarily in the more stabile product tanker market, where refined fuel products are shipped.
The Torm stock ended the year in 63 DKK, after a stock value of approximately 166 in the beginning of 2008. Fifteen months ago the stock was exchanged at the highest level ever when the price reached 240 DKK.
