Baltic Exchange shareholders face a moment of truth in the next few weeks as they decide whether to accept or reject Singapore Exchange (SGX)’s takeover offer for the 272-year-old, mutually owned dry bulk freight market.

It is not an overstatement to suggest the Baltic’s sale could be dry bulk’s “Big Bang”. The deal could be comparable in significance, if not in substance, to the wave of change that transformed the City of London as a financial centre after 1986.

Yet