Erck Rickmers leaving Hamburg parliament

   Germany’s Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper reported that Erck Rickmers will step down from his job in the Hamburg parliament at the end of August to focus his attention on the shipping business.
   He is chairman and founder of the shipping investment company Nordcapital and founder of the shipping company ER Schiffahrt.
   Rickmers told the newspaper while his company was not in danger, there was a “deep and lasting structural and financial crisis in shipping.”
   E.R. Schiffahrt has a fleet that includes 108 container vessels, 25 bulk carriers, 4 multipurpose ships, and 13 offshore vessels.
   The company joined its ship management activities this year with Komrowski Befrachtungskontor and the Komrowski Group-owned Blue Star to form the Blue Star Holding group of ship-owning companies.
   It said the partnership will allow it to benefit from competitive advantages and economies of scale in marketing, business and financing, and noted Blue Star “in terms of deadweight capacity” is Germany’s largest shipping group.
   Erck Rickmers is the brother of Bertram Rickmers who is chairman and owner of Rickmers Group.
   Their companies are separate without crossownership, with the exception of their 50/50 partnership in the broker company Harper Petersen.