SSY Brand Guidelines: Simpson & Spence of 1880 New York, Renamed SSY in 2023

Two brokers in New York, then a captain in Newcastle.

SSY began in New York, not London. English Wikipedia, citing TradeWinds and a 1947 report in The New York Times, says that in 1880 the English shipbroker Ernest Louis Simpson and the American shipbroker Lewis H. Spence set up a partnership in the city called Simpson & Spence. The firm still dates itself to that year: its website lists “1880 Established” among its headline figures and says it has more than 145 years of broking behind it.

The third name came two years later. According to the firm’s own account, as summarised by Wikipedia, Captain William M. Young joined the partnership in 1882 and opened an office in Newcastle upon Tyne, after which the business was known as Simpson Spence & Young. Further offices followed in London and other British ports, and for several decades New York and London were its two main centres. The SSY website still names Ernest Simpson, Lewis Spence and Captain William Young as its “forefathers.”

Over time the headquarters moved to London, where a British limited company now called Simpson Spence Young Ltd was incorporated in 1972, Wikipedia says. The firm’s research arm dates from June 1984. SSY says it began as a one-man department set up by Dr Phil Rogers, built on high-quality data, the firm’s links with charterers and the flow of information from its broking desks. Its flagship Monthly Shipping Review, the firm says, has a track record of nearly 40 years.

Through all of this the business has stayed private. SSY describes independence as the value that defines it “in business and in spirit” and says it has charted its own course since 1880. It calls itself the largest privately owned broking house in the world; Wikipedia adds that independent trade press commonly describes it as the largest independent shipbroker.

From dry cargo and tankers to offshore and aquaculture.

SSY works as an intermediary and adviser rather than a shipowner. English Wikipedia notes that it does not own or operate a trading fleet. Its website lists 14 broking divisions, among them dry cargo, tankers, derivatives, LNG, LPG, sale and purchase, offshore, rigs, chemicals, towage and ship recycling, alongside newer desks for nuclear energy, aquaculture and corporate finance. Vessel valuations sit in a separate business, SSY Valuation Services.

Much of that range was added in the last decade, through hiring and purchases. Wikipedia lists the steps. In 2017 SSY bought the Copenhagen dry-cargo broker Bidsted & Co., founded in 1940. In January 2022 it opened in Athens and took over the Piraeus sale-and-purchase specialist Anchor Shipbroking, and later that year a dry-cargo team in Genoa joined it.

Offshore came next. Offshore Engineer reported on 23 February 2023 that Simpson Spence Young had agreed terms to acquire Westshore Shipbrokers of Kristiansand, Norway, a broker launched in 1987, as the first step in a plan to become a major player in the offshore sector. In July 2023, Wikipedia says, SSY added the Hamburg- and Dubai-based F3 Offshore Group and opened in Hamburg, and in March 2025 it opened an office in Aberdeen.

The most recent move is in Scandinavia. On 12 December 2025 SSY announced that it had agreed terms to acquire Grieg Shipbrokers, a firm it says dates from 1884, with about 50 people in Oslo, Bergen and London. SSY said the Grieg brand would not continue and the business would be folded into SSY. Lloyd’s List reported the agreement on 15 December 2025.

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.

Three surnames shortened to three letters.

For more than 140 years the firm traded as Simpson Spence Young. On 17 October 2023 it announced that it would from then on be known officially as SSY, and unveiled what it called a new global corporate identity: a new logo, a new website at ssyglobal.com, a set of corporate values (Trust, Independence, Expertise) and an online portal for its research division called SSY Navigator. Managing partner Stanko Jekov said at the time that the firm was active in 24 locations and wanted to unite them under “one clear, strong and global brand.” The full name lives on in the small print: the website footer says Simpson Spence Young is a registered trademark.

The same announcement launched a trainee programme, which was to start in London in September 2024 and spread to other offices in September 2025, with 12 months of desk training, seminars, port visits and vessel trips. The website now leads with the line “Experience Matters” and puts its weekly research notes, such as the SSY Weekly Technical Analysis, on the home page.

The firm is organised as a partnership. Wikipedia, citing Lloyd’s List, says Jekov, previously head of dry cargo, became managing partner in early 2023, that SSY had 27 partners in late 2024, and that headcount grew from about 373 to about 550 over that period. In November 2026 the SSY website gives figures of 650 broking experts and 27 local offices, a count that varies slightly from page to page.

For a design guide, SSY shows how an old partnership can shorten its name without losing its history, keeping the founding year and the three founders in view while the brand itself becomes three letters. Compare Clarksons, another London shipbroker with nineteenth-century roots, and Gibson, a London tanker broker founded in 1893. For this guide we use a deep navy and a teal with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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