This work explained why only 31, out of about 1000 Greek-owned global shipping companies, raised from $1 b to $21 b from the international stock exchanges (mainly NYSE & NASDAQ), since mainly 2005. First, we thought that by analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of an IPO, we could possibly provide this answer, but these found almost balanced. We drew several times on Keynes. We found that Greek shipowners consider their profession as a way of life , and they dislike the function of Stock Exchanges where a separation of ownership from management can be accomplished. Surprisingly, we found that also Stock Exchanges dislike shipping sector, mainly for its volatility ! Volatility —we showed—to be a coin with two sides: one side is that earnings, NAVs, etc. are not stable, creating risk and unreliability —this side is looked-up by Stock Exchanges and banks; the other side is that of reality, because shipping sector is a cyclical one, with 8 years on average duration, providing thus—as shown—great opportunities for extremely profitable asset appreciation , which is known as “asset play” ! If banks, and stock exchanges, learned-well shipping sector, they had to provide finance at rock bottom earnings, and not at high, as they do, and for a longer tenor than 4 years (to prove this we used a number of case-studies). We showed, however, the high detrimental sensitivity of banks and stock exchanges to global financial crises , like that at the end-2008. Greek-owned shipping lost 2/3 of its capitalization within 10 months, and given that crisis continued till 2020, they were unable to get finance! Finally, to avoid spreading-out a cloud of pessimism in a world under the shadow of the Pandemic, and given that shipping sector is unpredictable, but well-managed, we proposed “management by visioning” based on Chaos Theory .
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