“You will find us in more niche situations,” said Philipp Wunschmann, head of shipping at the world’s second-oldest bank.

The 400-year-old bank is not interested in the “big ticket” deals that Asian financiers are vying for.

It takes more of a guerrilla approach to shipping investments, picking off opportunistic deals when they occur and where the larger banks are weakest.

The once-staid private bank, which traces its roots back to 1590, has been using the shipping crisis to reinvent itself.