In an industry increasingly fixated on scale, Noble Capital Markets is an advocate for the little guy.

For example, for its second successive annual investor conference in Fort Lauderdale, Noble brought a group of small-cap and micro-cap shipowners together with investors who focus on such relative minnows.

In some ways, the event mirrors the sort of thing that Florida-based Noble seeks to do all year as it pursues a niche among shipping investment banks that runs against the wisdom that bigger is generally better.