Pangaea chairman Richard du Moulin to retire after 12 years on board

Pangaea Logistics Solutions chairman Richard du Moulin will retire at the end of 2026, closing out more than 12 years on the board of the Newport-based, Nasdaq-listed dry bulk shipping and logistics group.

The company disclosed in a regulatory filing that du Moulin had notified the board of his decision, effective December 31, 2026. That gives Pangaea well over a year to find a successor — because right now, nobody has been named for the chairman's seat.

Du Moulin has served as a director since Pangaea's stock market debut in 2014. His ties to the company run far deeper than that listing date, though: the association stretches back more than 25 years, meaning he was involved well before the group became a public entity.

What does the departure change for Pangaea?

In the near term, very little operationally. The handover is more than a year away, and du Moulin's exit is a board-level move, not an executive one. But it lands at a moment when the company's leadership is already in flux.

Mads Petersen took over as president and chief executive in January this year, following the retirement of longtime boss Mark Filanowski. Du Moulin's departure means that within roughly two years, Pangaea will have replaced both its CEO and its chairman — a near-complete turnover at the top of a dry bulk group that has leaned heavily on long-tenured leadership.

For investors in the Nasdaq-listed carrier, the open question is succession. The filing made no mention of a replacement, and the company has not signalled a timeline. Boards typically use a long runway like this to groom an internal candidate or recruit externally. Neither path has been confirmed.

A career spanning four decades of shipping

Du Moulin's résumé reads like a map of late-20th-century US shipping. He headed Marine Transport Lines between 1989 and 1998, then served as chairman and chief executive of Marine Transport Corporation until 2002. He also chaired tanker owners' association Intertanko from 1996 to 1999, and founded Intrepid Shipping in 2002.

That mix — liner leadership, tanker industry governance, and entrepreneurship — is what Pangaea's board tapped when he joined. Claus Boggild, one of Pangaea's founders and its lead independent director, paid tribute to that contribution this week, highlighting du Moulin's "vast knowledge, forethought and integrity" throughout his involvement with the company.

The broader picture for shippers and the dry bulk trade

Pangaea sits in the niche end of dry bulk: specialized cargo handling, logistics integration, and ice-class operations rather than pure commodity haulage. A chairman with du Moulin's depth — decades across tankers, liners and dry bulk — is not easily replaced, and forwarders and cargo customers who deal with the Newport group will watch the succession choice for signals about strategic continuity.

The practical stakes are modest but real. A new chairman could steer fleet renewal, capital allocation or the balance between shipping revenue and Pangaea's port-side logistics services. Under Petersen, the CEO seat has already changed hands once; the chairman's vote is the remaining piece of the old guard.

With the retirement not taking effect until December 31, 2026, Pangaea has time. Whether it names a successor from within its founding circle — Boggild among the obvious candidates given his lead independent director role — or looks outside, the decision will shape how the dry bulk group is governed into the next decade.