In 1887, Haakon J. Wallem arrived in Shanghai where he established Wallem and Company and later Wallem Shipbroking in 1903. The first ship managed by the company was the Oscar II in 1905. A Hong Kong office was opened in 1925.
By 1938, Wallem owned 15 ships with a total tonnage of 47,101 dwt. In 1949, the Group moved its headquarters to Hong Kong and since then its activities have grown at an impressive speed. Wallem Shipmanagement was established in 1971. Wallem is now one of the world’s leading ship managers, with over 300 vessels under management and some 6,500 seafarers sailing on these vessels.
‘True North’, by the way, is Full Ahead the Wallem Way. “This is our commitment to upholding the traditional values and innovative solutions that have driven our success for over 100 years. ‘True North’ charts Wallem’s continued strategic growth as a leading integrated maritime services provider. We operate 44 offices in 19 countries.” (From Wallem’s brochure entitled True North.)
Says Jim Nelson, Managing Director of Wallem Shipmanagement Ltd: “We have more than 110 bulk carriers in our management at the present time and the charter rates are at high levels never experienced before. In some instances Capesize vessels have been earning in excess of 200k USD per day in recent months, which puts a lot of pressure on to ensure that the vessel is never off hire and that repairs and dry docking times are kept to the absolute minimum. When you add the shortage of repair facilities into the equation, it is a very challenging period.
“We have more than 100 officers who have been with us for over 30 years, and an additional number in excess of 150 who have been with us for more than 25 years. These figures speak for themselves; we have managed to build a Wallem family of crew and personnel. Wallem is a big group, but still small enough to keep the company culture alive. We can help spouses with many issues if the husband is out travelling and we go out of our way to assist when needed.
“Most of our employees come from within the Wallem Group, many of our office staff have been with us from Cadet to Master or Chief Engineer, before taking up their shore based positions. Currently we have over 600 cadets in our training programme both onboard and ashore. That is a high number, but when looking at the growth of our management activities and also the natural turnover of employees due, for instance, to retirement, we must keep a focus on this. We have training facilities in Mumbai, Manila and, since 2006, also in Qingdao,” says Nelson. “Our employee retention rate is an impressive 90 per cent and, in cooperation with our customers, we ensure career paths that go all the way through.
“We are involved in the newbuildings from plan approvals to delivery and after that the operational phase. We manage several geared bulk carriers and due to improvements in the design of cargo equipment and the use of planned maintenance routines, reliability of this machinery has improved over the years. That is of course good news for all personnel involved with the vessel from both a commercial and technical viewpoint,” concludes Nelson.
Date: 30 January 2008