February 27 - Hot on the heels of Clipper Group ceo Kristian Morch's decision to resign from the Thorco Shipping board, Kent Hedegaard, joint chief executive officer and chief financial officer at Thorco, has stepped down from the company.

Morch's departure was described as being due to "differing views about the strategic direction of the company", while Me Christensen, head of communications at Clipper Group, confirmed that the move was "not in any way dramatic, and Clipper continues to have its remaining multipurpose fleet in commercial management with Thorco".

However, HLPFI understands that of the 40 ships that Clipper originally placed in the merged company, there are only 10 still under Thorco management.

Thor Stadil, chairman of Thorco and owner of parent company Thornico, shared a similar sentiment, commenting that there was "nothing dramatic in a third party board member resigning after having discussed strategy with the owners".

"We mutually agreed that it was easier to move on just having the owners as board members," said Stadil, who now sits on the board with his son, Christian Stadil, and remaining ceo Thomas Mikkelsen.

Stadil explained that Hedegaard was not a board member but has been working as Thorco's chartered accountant for over 30 years. In May 2014, after the stepping down of Henrik Ramskov as ceo of the company, Hedegaard was appointed, along with Mikkelsen, to jointly manage Thorco's operations.

"Kent has only been with Thorco for about six months and we found that having two equal level ceos did not work," added Stadil.

He assured that Thorco was still on friendly terms with both Hedegaard and Morch, despite their decisions to step away from the company.

 

 

www.thorcoshipping.com

www.clipper-group.com

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