Sitting at a table outside a plush Italian restaurant on Hamburg’s inner-city boulevard Ballindamm, Alexander Gast tells a story about the respected German shipbroker Peter Gast.
Fifty years ago, the founder of brokerage Peter Gast Shipping took a trip to China to bring newbuilding orders from Chinese shipowners back to shipyards in Germany.
Having seen the facilities on offer, Gast reversed course and instead engineered the first newbuildings ever placed by German shipowners in China.
