Until late 2008, these issues substantially benefited the maritime and ports industry as large
sums of capital became available for a variety of intermodal improvements such as a new
generation of containerships, the development of new and more advanced port terminal
facilities worldwide to support export-oriented strategies (as illustrated by those in East Asia)
as well as inland ports to better access regional markets (for example in North America and
Europe). The perverse consequence was that transportation became increasingly perceived
solely from a financial perspective, particularly since a large number of stakeholders and
decision makers were coming from the financial sector as opposed from the transportation
sector. Terminals became a financial product part of a global asset portfolio, whose
performance was often seen in terms of price to earnings ratios. Another perverse effect was
that terminal assets came to be perceived as liquid, a perception encouraged by the active
involvement of a variety of financial firms so that terminal assets for sale (or lease) could
readily find an acquirer. The problem is that financial considerations can shift rapidly as the
horizon is commonly short term, while intermodal assets have a planning and operational
horizon that can easily span a decade even for its most “volatile” elements, namely ships and several decades for its less “volatile” elements namely terminal infrastructure. The volatility
that characterizes financial markets permeated the maritime shipping industry and as the global
economy surged under a flood of cheap credit coupled with asset inflation, so did the shipping
and port industries.