Ben Ognibene News

Heidmar and TBS Ocean are joining forces to form a dry bulk pool alliance. New alliance with TBS Ocean plan to combine two players’ operating strengths in geared bulker JV. TBS will continue as manager of a series of dry bulk pools, while Heidmar will provide its pool expertise, best practices, and proprietary commercial ship management software. Ben Ognibene, ceo of Heidmar commented, “For some time Heidmar has explored expansion into the dry bulk market. "TBS, with its global footprint, extensive cargo relationships, proprietary trading business and its 22-year history of exceptional and consistent dry bulk outperformance is the ideal partner to expand our product offering,” he added.

Conference organizers have announced the speaker lineup for the 21st annual Hellenic-American and Norwegian-American Chambers of Commerce conference, often called the New York Shipping Conference. Entitled “The Life of a Ship”, the conference will feature luminaries including Steinar Nerbovik of Aker Philadelphia Shipyard, Ben Ognibene of Heidmar, Craig Stevenson Jr., Joseph Hughes of Shipowners Claims Bureau, Paal Johansen of DNV GL, and Angela Chao of Foremost Group . The event will be held on Wednesday, February 11 at the Waldorf-Astoria starting at 8:15 a.m. with conference registration and continental breakfast sponsored by DNB Bank ASA. The luncheon keynote speaker will be Sturla Henriksen, CEO of the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association, organizers said.

The Board of Directors of Heidmar has announced the appointment of Hans van der Zijde as Heidmar's new Chief Executive Officer. Mr. van der Zijde graduated from the Nautical Academy of Rotterdam in 1985 and subsequently studied Maritime and Logistic Management there, graduating in 1992. Mr. van der Zijde has worked for and held management positions in leading shipping companies in Europe, South Africa and Asia. He has overall experience across most of the shipping segments, including tankers, and containers and short-sea. This experience extends to many aspects of shipping, ship husbandry, ship management, chartering and raising capital for asset plays. For the last five years, Mr.

Heidmar’s Board of Directors. reacted swiftly to the untimely death of CEO Marc La Monte, appointing Ben Ognibene to the position of interim Chief Executive Officer. Ognibene became Heidmar’s COO in July 2013. That promotion followed a long and successful career at almost every level of the company’s Pool management business, during which time he worked closely with both Pool partners and more recently chartering clients. Ognibene started at Heidmar in 2004 focusing on the creation of Heidmar’s Aframax Pool, Sigma Tankers.