When veteran bankers Jens Dose and Christian Speer joined MM Warburg & Co, its shipping desk was a little understated.

“It was a bit like sleeping beauty,” said Dose, head of international shipping of the Hamburg-based bank.

“They had been doing some business mainly in the domestic market, but there was no international business at all.”

The duo, who today jointly run the shipping desk, had taken it upon themselves to reinvent the bank's approach to shipping on joining in July 2016.