| Abstract : | The shipping industry is one of the most capital-intensive industries, a provider of transportation worldwide and a contributor to growth. The industry consists of multiple segments, which are separated by the goods they carry but also by different characteristics such as the ship type and different economical drivers. Along with the capital-intensive industry comes the high operating leverage that also possess a risk. Operating with a high leverage can be a source to a company’s bankruptcy in economic downturn, but also crucial for the companies to be able to buy new assets and expand. Along with the high operating leverage, comes debt that shipping companies need to be able to bear thru economic impacts and cyclicality, but also unforeseen events such as changes in the weather, pandemic, war, and jurisdictions on a government level.The impact of covid-19 has heavily affected the world and the industry. Given the different characteristics of the industry and the segments, the objective of the thesis will be to examine whether covid-19 had any impact on the different segments in terms of financial ratios, but also if any of the changes can be explained by macroeconomic variables. To further investigate the impact of covid-19, we gathered data consisting of 85 shipping firms that are representing four different segments: Dry bulk, Tank, Container and Offshore, with different set requirements such as listing on a stock exchange, at least five vessels in their fleet and at least 80% of their fleet within one segment. The time periods were set to be pre-covid (2017-2019), during covid (2020) and post-covid (2021), which laid the foundation for our thesis as to see whether the pandemic has had any impact, but also to see the relationship between the financial ratios and to see whether they are influenced by macroeconomic factors.
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