The fundamental question of my master's thesis is "What type of financing is most appropriate when buying a ship?" The answer is ambiguous. Many factors contribute to this. At the beginning of my master’s thesis, I focused on the history of maritime finance. I have described the importance of maritime finance in the past and what innovations have led to the development of maritime finance as we know it today. The last few decades are very important, when the fleets have really increased a lot (ship orders are shown, among other things). The purchase of ships is very important from the point of view of an individual shipowner, as the final price of products depends on it, so the part of the task briefly presents the conditions that let the shipowner know when the purchase of a ship is necessary. In the following, I also described financial institutions dealing with maritime finance (commercial and investment banks and financial and leasing houses). Financing of the purchase can be ownership or debt, or internal and external. Internal financing is through own resources, and external through shares, loans, subsidies or special forms. External financing can also be through acquisitions and mergers. It should be noted, however, that a bank loan still predominates as a source of financing, so I also made calculations on how to repay the loan under different methods (with the same annuities, with the same installments and at the end of the agreed period in full) or I compared these different ways and described which is worth using (depending on the position of the shipowner). Finally, I would like to emphasize that the purchase of ships will continue to be a very interesting area in the future, as the methods of financing are constantly being updated and it is not known which method will continue to prevail in the future.
|