Private Equity’s Bet on Shipping Falters as Deal Boom Ends
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A liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker. Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg
At a New York shipping conference late last year, Mark Friedman, a senior managing director at Evercore Partners Inc., regaled attendees with an analogy to the Eagles’ “Hotel California.”
Investors, as his reference to the song went, can get into the industry but can never leave.
WL Ross & Co., Oaktree Capital Group LLC and other private-equity firms bought vessels at near record-low prices since 2010, planning to ride the global recovery. Instead, they found that what goes down sometimes stays down. And now, stuck running fleets that few others want to buy, they’re left to contend with declining freight rates…
Private Equity’s Bet on Shipping Falters as Deal Boom Ends
