Baltic Exchange
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Baltic Exchange is a UK company that operates the premier global marketplace for shipbrokers, ship owners and charterers. The company was founded in the mid-eighteenth century. The first use of the name was at the Virginia and Baltick Coffee House in Threadneedle Street in 1744, and was registered as a private limited company with shares in 1900. Today the exchange is owned by its member companies and is not publicly traded on a stock exchange. It is operated by a member-elected Board of Directors.
The exchange provides daily freight market prices and maritime shipping cost indices, and a market for freight futures (known as Forward Freight Agreements or FFAs), as well as port information, and serves as a sea-vessel marketplace and a venue for dispute resolution. Originally operating a trading floor, the exchange's transactions are today done solely over the telephone.
The company reportedly employed 32 people as of 2003, and currently reports employing 27.
Their office is located at 38 St Mary Axe in central London, and is also used as a business and social venue.
The exchange publishes six daily indices:
- Baltic Dry Index
- Baltic Panamax Index (BPI)
- Baltic Capesize Index (BCI)
- Baltic Handymax Index (BHMI)
- Baltic Tanker Dirty Index
- Baltic Tanker Clean Index
[edit] The bombing
On April 10 1992 the Exchange's offices at 30 St Mary Axe were virtually destroyed in an Irish Republican Army bomb attack. The bomb was contained in a large white truck and consisted of a fertilizer device wrapped with a detonation cord made from Semtex. It killed three people: Paul Butt, 29, Baltic Exchange employee Thomas Casey, 49, and 15-year old Danielle Carter. £350 million worth of damage was done to surrounding buildings, many of which were also badly damaged by the Bishopsgate bombing the following year.
The historic building was built in 1903 by Smith and Wimble and had been listed as a Grade II listed building. Architectural conservationists wanted to reconstruct what remained from the bombing -- even winning the support of the government. English Heritage, a government preservation society, and the Corporation of London insisted that any redevelopment must restore the building's old façade on to St Mary Axe. Baltic Exchange, unable to afford such an expensive undertaking, sold the land to Trafalgar House in 1995. Most of the remaining structures on the site were then carefully dismantled; the interior of Exchange Hall and the facade were preserved and sealed from the elements.
English Heritage later discovered the damage was far more severe than they had previously thought. Accordingly, they resiled insisting on a full restoration. What remained of Exchange Hall was completely razed in 1998 with the permission of John Prescott, over the objections of architectural conservationists.
Its classic red granite, coloured marble, Portland stone, and much of the original plaster interiors that survived the bomb are currently stored in a Canterbury barn. Dismantled and packed in wooden crates, they are waiting to be sold for £750,000.
30 St Mary Axe is now home to the building commissioned by Swiss Re, commonly referred to as "the Gherkin".
[edit] Current Management
As of November, 2004, the current management includes:
- Chief Executive: Jeremy Penn
- Head of Finance and Company Secretary: Mark Soutter
- Communications: Bill Lines
