For Management Companies

Fleet-wide contract governance, for the vessels you manage.

MBN gives management companies one governed record across the whole fleet: every tender, bid, and award, traceable and audit-grade, with delegation, financial control, and authority attribution. Full Management Company support arrives in MBN's next phase, ~January 2027. Here's what it will do, and how to get your fleet ready now.

What MBN is for management companies

For management companies (admins running operations across multiple vessels, vessel managers acting on delegated authority, finance teams reconciling fleet-wide spend, ops leads coordinating shipyard work), MBN solves a problem the size of your portfolio.

Today, contracting across 5, 10, 20 vessels means 5, 10, 20 sets of email threads, approval chains, vendor relationships, and reconstruction efforts when something goes wrong. MBN consolidates the procurement record across your fleet into one structured, audit-grade source: every tender, every bid, every award, traceable back to the vessel it served and the authority who signed off. Tenders published by vessels in your portfolio are emailed by MBN Tender Distribution to matched service providers automatically (by engineering category and service sub-region), so your fleet's distribution reach scales globally without vendor-list maintenance on your side or theirs.

How registration will work when Management Company accounts open

Management Company accounts open in MBN's next phase, ~January 2027. When they do, registration will move through five stages (signup, profile, roles, review, submit), then MBN reviews your submission and forms your organization. Everything autosaves. Here's the flow you'll follow:

Step 1: Start at app.maritimebids.com.

Pick Management Company, then Continue. You'll be directed to MBN's branded login at login.maritimebids.com to sign up. After signup, you'll receive a verification email; click the link to confirm your address.

Step 2: Confirm your name.

Once your email is verified, you'll confirm the name on your account. Email stays unchanged from the previous step.

Step 3: Build your organization profile.

Two sections: the Legal Entity (legal name, optional trade name, registered address, country) and the Operational Profile (operating region and country, primary city, timezone). These represent your management company itself, not the vessels you manage; those vessels register their own organizations and link to yours.

Step 4: Add your team and assign roles.

Add members by full name and email. Then assign:

  • Admin (exactly one): the person responsible for the management company on MBN
  • Vessel Manager (one or more), required: the people who'll act on delegated authority across the vessels you manage

If the admin is someone other than you, MBN sends them an invitation email; they accept by clicking the link and they become the organization's submitter.

Step 5: Review and submit.

You'll see a read-only summary of everything entered, with per-section Edit buttons. You'll confirm legal representation (or, if you're not the admin, acknowledge the handoff). Submission moves your organization into the Awaiting Approval Suite, a status page showing where your application sits in the review process.

MBN review. An MBN officer reviews each submission. If approved, your management company is formed and your dashboard unlocks. If changes are requested or the submission is rejected, you'll see the reason and can act from the same suite.

What MBN will deliver: portfolio tendering visibility

When Management Company accounts open (~January 2027), you'll get consolidated visibility across every vessel in your portfolio. From your dashboard:

See every tender across your fleet in one place.

Each tender published by a vessel you manage appears in your portfolio view (open, awarded, archived) alongside who published it, what scope was defined, which service providers received the tender via MBN Tender Distribution, and which providers bid.

See every award and the authority behind it.

When a vessel under your management awards a contract, you see the award, the awarded service provider, the price, and which authority on the vessel side made the call. Audit trail without asking for it.

Audit-grade records from day one.

Every tender, bid, clarification, and award is timestamped and attributable. If a dispute or audit reaches your office months later, the record is intact, exactly as it was, with the parties and authorities clearly identified.

Portfolio tendering visibility is the immediate value when Management Company accounts open. The deeper governance (delegation enforcement, financial control, suspension and enforcement, cross-vessel authority attribution) follows in the same phase, ~January 2027. That's what the next section covers.

Arriving January 2027

What arrives later (January 2027): the main value for management companies

Most management-company-specific governance activates ~January 2027. This is the heart of why management companies will register with MBN. Four capabilities:

  • Delegation and Financial Controlexplicit, organization-to-organization delegation with role-based permissions and financial thresholds that fail closed. A vessel manager authorized to spend up to $50,000 cannot approve a $200,000 invoice; the system blocks it. Cross-vessel authority is enforced at the platform, not by spreadsheet.
  • Suspension and Enforcementconsequences for an unpaid license or governance invoices. Capability is withdrawn; records preserved. Management companies operating across vessels know exactly what's at stake for each organization.
  • Authority Attribution Across Vesselsevery action across your portfolio carries clear authority attribution. When a captain on Vessel A approves, when a chief engineer on Vessel B signs off on commissioning, when a vessel manager you employ approves a change order across three vessels, every action is attributable, timestamped, and traceable back to the delegated authority that authorized it.
  • External Contract Governance (ECG)governance for contracts originated outside the MBN tender lifecycle: the same governed structure for legacy contracts you bring into MBN, part of the Governance License with no per-contract fee.

None of this is live yet. The activation target is ~January 2027. We label it explicitly so you can plan, and so you understand that the central management-company value lands then.

Why it matters: the central management-company case

Management Company accounts open ~January 2027, later than vessels and service providers, who can register and operate on MBN today. For management companies, the value isn't tendering; it's delegation governance across your fleet. When accounts open, here's what setup will establish:

  • Your management company gets fully set up: profile, team, roles assigned, MBN officer review completed.
  • Your dashboard gives you visibility into your fleet's tenders across the vessels you manage.
  • The vessels you manage register their own organizations and link to yours.
  • Your delegation framework (who's authorized to do what, across which vessels, up to which financial thresholds) gets defined and locked.

Get your fleet ready before accounts open: When Management Company accounts open, the vessels you manage will already be tendering and awarding on MBN. Have your delegation model mapped (who's authorized to do what, across which vessels, up to which thresholds) so you govern from day one, not while contracts are already executing.

Use the lead time to align your fleet: Get the vessels you manage registered and operating on MBN now, and map the delegation framework you'll apply when Management Company governance activates ~January 2027. Methodical, no production pressure, no need to configure it the moment it goes live.

Map your delegation framework before Management Company accounts open ~January 2027, rather than configuring it on the day it activates. In the meantime, the vessels you manage can register and operate on MBN today.

Planning ahead?

Management Company accounts open in MBN's next phase, ~January 2027. In the meantime, the vessels you manage can register and start tendering today at app.maritimebids.com.

Already managing vessels on MBN? Each vessel you manage registers its own organization and links to yours. Start with the vessels at app.maritimebids.com.

app.maritimebids.com →