'First of many'

For shipping finance veteran Paul Slater, Eastwind Maritime's bankruptcy is just the beginning of a raft of insolvencies.

He told TradeWinds Wednesday that the Chapter 7 filing is the "first of many to come" in a shipping industry that at the moment is just "moving the deck chairs on the Titanic."

"I think that nearly half the public shipping companies will be insolvent in the next 12 months," he said on the sidelines of the Marine Money Week conference in New York.

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