BALTIC EXCHANGE

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

Contents

The bombing

Current management

Baltic International Freight Futures Exchange sold to Estonia

External links

The bombing

On April 10 1992 the Exchange's offices at 30 St Mary Axe were virtually destroyed in a Provisional 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.^[1] 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 City of London Corporation 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 stopped 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 were first stored in a Reading warehouse before being sold in 2003 to salvage dealer Derek Davies, who moved them to Cheshire. Davies put the elements on SalvoWEB in February 2003, finally selling the 1,000 tonnes or more to salvage dealer Dennis Buggins in late 2005. Buggins then moved the elements from Cheshire to various barns around Canterbury in Kent.
30 St Mary Axe is now home to the building commissioned by Swiss Re, commonly referred to as "the Gherkin".

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

Baltic International Freight Futures Exchange sold to Estonia

'BIFFEX - The Baltic International Freight Futures Exchange' - was a London-based exchange for trading ocean freight futures contracts with settlement based on the 'Baltic Freight Index'. It started trading dry cargo freight futures contracts in 1985, and was modestly successful for some years. All contracts were cleared by the ICCH (International Commodity Clearing House), later renamed LCH (London Clearing House). A tanker freight futures contract was introduced in 1986, but never became popular and was suspended indefinitely the same year. Volumes in the dry cargo contracts dwindled over the years, and the contracts ceased trading due to lack of liquidity in 2001.
In June 2006 an Estonian businessman, Eerik-Niiles Kross, found the ad for the Baltic Exchange on SalvoWEB whilst trawling the web for reclaimed flooring [1]. He and his business partner Heiti Haar bought the Baltic Exchange elements from Dennis Buggins of Extreme Archiectura in Kent, and the 49 containers were shipped via Felixstowe to Tallinn in June 2007 [2].

External links

★ Official web site

★ Baltic Exchange at Yahoo Finance

★ Old Baltic Exchange building

★ Some pictures of the wreckage

★ SalvoWEB: Several news stories about the Baltic Exchange sale