Arctic Sector Report: Shipping - The upcycle has returned

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Arctic Sector Report: Shipping - The upcycle has returned

Arctic Shipping

Other Shipping | Sector Report | 11 June 2026 | 08:05

The upcycle has returned

The car carrier space has defied the downturn everyone feared, and done so comfortably.

Markets have taken note: WAWI is up 44% YTD, HAUTO 66%. But consensus is still

materially lagging. We believe the overdue revisions will push both stocks higher still. Our

base case assumes 2027 mirrors 2026 on net freight for both companies, putting us 19%

above EBITDA consensus for WAWI and 34% above for HAUTO. At a 2027 P/E of 7.8x and

6.1x respectively, the stocks are getting pricy, but revisions are the next leg up.

China’s export machine is the freight story of 2026, once again

The 6,500 CEU one-year time charter has recovered to USD 65k/d, up 41% from the Sept–Dec

trough of USD 42.5k/d, yet consensus still assumes a drift toward normalisation. We believe that

is wrong. With Chinese exports accelerating and High & Heavy demand turning, earnings risk is

skewed to the upside. We lift our recommendations to Buy. China is the demand engine. Light-

vehicle exports are running +70% YTD (784k units in May alone, NEVs now 54% of the mix), and

CAAM guides for 10m exported cars in 2026 against 7.1m in 2025. The implied Q1 run-rate implies

7.8m units. Assuming the target is met, Q2-Q4 units would stand at 8.04m, or 10.67m units on an

annualized basis. This would correspond to a growth of 2.9m units from 2025 levels and translates

into an incremental vessel demand of 115x, assuming four round-trips per year at 6,250 units per

voyage to Europe or comparable distances.

The orderbook bark is worse than its bite

Those 115 incremental vessels stack against 45 deliveries in Q2–Q4 2026, 50 in 2027, and 38 in

2028.