BRS Brand Guidelines: Marseille 1856, Barry Rogliano Salles & a Partnership of Brokers

Two brokers and sworn interpreters in one port.

BRS dates itself to Marseille in 1856. The company’s timeline says that in that year two Frenchmen, Jules Barry and Jean-Drausin Salles, were separately appointed shipbrokers and sworn interpreters in the port — two practices, not yet one firm. In December 2013 gCaptain described Barry Rogliano Salles as a “157-year-old French ship brokerage company,” which matches that date, and in 2010 the French maritime site Mer et Marine described BRS as founded in Marseille.

The three surnames came together in the twentieth century. According to the company, in 1934 Edmond Salles partnered with Barry-Rogliano to form BRS SA. Trade reports from gCaptain in 2011 and 2013 use the full name and the initials side by side.

The company’s timeline passes from 1934 to the Second World War in a single line: despite the widespread destruction of tonnage during the war, it says, BRS SA found new opportunities to contribute to the rebuilding of the French merchant fleet. The sources used for this guide do not say how the company operated during the occupation of 1940–1944.

Expansion abroad came later. In 1972, the company says, BRS took a minority stake in the Spanish broker Franco Española Maritima (FEM) in Madrid, the start of its move into foreign markets. In 1988 it changed from a family firm into a fully independent shipbroker through a management buyout agreed with 15 senior shipbrokers, which it says opened a period of European diversification and expansion. In the 1990s, by the company’s account, the brand turned from a local family-owned business into an international company with offices in maritime hubs.

Chartering, newbuilding and research from Paris.

BRS is a Paris house. gCaptain, republishing a 2011 report, called it a “Paris-based broker” with a staff of 35 in China arranging dry-bulk cargoes. Today the company says it runs 23 offices in the main shipping hubs, with more than 255 shipbrokers and staff of more than 42 nationalities; its 2023 timeline entry speaks of a presence in 23 countries and 12 business lines. It describes its work as tailor-made chartering, with brokerage, operations and research teams, and adds a data intelligence team and a trade compliance team that screens every transaction.

Newbuilding broking produced one of its most public deals. In December 2013 gCaptain reported that the charity Mercy Ships had agreed with China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation to build a 36,600-GRT hospital ship at the Tianjin Xingang Shipyard, designed by Deltamarin of Finland, and that BRS, working from its Geneva office, negotiated the contract and sale. The ship, Global Mercy, was delivered at Tianjin Xingang in June 2021, gCaptain reported, naming BRS as broker on the project. BRS lists Mercy Ships among its partnerships, alongside World Bicycle Relief and an alumni association for the commodity trading programmes of the University of Geneva.

Research is where the name travels furthest. BRS publishes an Annual Review of the shipping and shipbuilding markets, in English and Chinese editions for 2026, with an online archive back to 2018, plus monthly dry bulk and tanker reports and weekly newsletters on both markets. The company says the monthly reports cover fleet data, sale and purchase activity, ordering, demolition, time charter rates and forward freight agreement values, while the weekly newsletters add freight commentary, a topic of the week and newbuilding information. The press picks it up: Mer et Marine interviewed the company’s president about the annual report in March 2010, and in March 2025 SAFETY4SEA summarised the 2025 review, reporting its figures that newbuilding orders rose from 128.4 million dwt in 2023 to 193.1 million dwt in 2024.

The firm also built data tools. In 2009 gCaptain quoted the AXS Alphaliner liner service as an internet resource of Barry Rogliano Salles. In February 2026 Le Monde du Droit reported Signal Ocean’s acquisition of AXSMarine, a provider of software for the shipping sector, from BRS, and said BRS had also invested in Signal Ocean.

How shipbroking houses present themselves.

Shipbrokers arrange charters and ship sales rather than make products, and their websites lean on age, reach and research. Many London houses put a long founding date close to the name: Clarksons traces its business to 1852, and Braemar counts more than fifty years since its 1971 start. This guide reads the category through a sober register of navy, deep red and stone with plain wordmarks, an unofficial interpretation rather than any firm’s own colours.

The websites tend to be organised by market. Clarksons and Braemar both split their chartering pages into desks for tankers, dry cargo, gas and containers, with sale and purchase alongside, and both run derivatives teams that trade freight futures. At Clarksons, offshore and renewables appear as further desks, so a visitor can go straight to the market they trade.

Research is the second pillar. Clarksons runs Clarksons Research as its own business line, with data platforms sold by subscription, while Braemar keeps a research team next to its broking desks and a news and insights section. Market reports, forecasts and conference talks give these firms a public voice between deals, and trade publications such as gCaptain and The Maritime Executive have reported their outlooks and results.

Office maps and careers pages complete the picture. Clarksons says it has more than 70 offices in 26 countries, and Braemar lists tanker desks from London and Madrid to Houston, Geneva and Singapore. Both publish trainee broker programmes for graduates and newcomers, and Clarksons adds summer internships in London and Oslo. The guides that follow look at how each house presents its history, its markets and its people.

A partnership of brokers.

Ownership sits with the brokers. In 2014, the company says, it set up a new partnership structure, and it now counts more than 120 partners. It marked its 150th anniversary in 2006, and it publishes terms and conditions that it says apply to every entity in the BRS Group.

The identity leans on age and initials. The website, which its footer says was built with the agency Bavaroise, heads its pages with “A shipbroker established in 1856” and “Distinctive Shipbroking since 1856,” and lays out the company’s history as a dated timeline from 1856 to 2023. The three letters stand for the surnames Barry, Rogliano and Salles, and the full name still appears in press reports such as the 2026 item in Le Monde du Droit. The Annual Review, now published in English and Chinese, puts the BRS name on a yearly market reference that the trade press reports on.

For a design guide, BRS shows a broking house that makes its founding year the headline and its initials the name. Compare Fearnleys, the Oslo shipbroker, and Clarksons, the London shipbroking house. For this guide we use a Vieux-Port blue, warm stone and an ochre accent with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep BRS’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.