Ocean Group plc

Ocean Group plc was a major British transport business. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

Ocean Group

Industry	Transport
Fate	Merged with NFC plc
Successor	Exel plc
Founded	1865
Defunct	2000
Headquarters	London, UK

History

The company was founded by Alfred Holt and Philip Holt, as the Ocean Steamship Company, to provide a steamship service known as the Blue Funnel Line, between the United Kingdom and China.[1] It was generally known as Holts and had a trademark blue funnel on its ships.[1] For many years it used Swire Group as it shipping agents.[1] In 1947 it formed Malayan Airways.[1]

It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1965.[1]

In 1969, it joined forces with British & Commonwealth Holdings, Furness Withy, and P&O to form Overseas Containers Limited to exploit the introduction of containerization.[1]

In 1972, it acquired William Cory, a major shipping agent, and the following year, it changed its name to Ocean Transport & Trading.[1]

In 1986, it withdrew Overseas Containers Limited and in 1990 it renamed itself Ocean Group.[1]

In 2000, it merged with NFC plc to form Exel plc.[2]

Group members

A major restructuring exercise occurred in 1967 whereby all of the Ocean Steam Ship Company’s fleet operations were divided amongst four companies, each of which answered to the main board of the Ocean Steam Ship Company. The four fleet operating companies were: -

• Blue Funnel Line
• Elder Dempster
• Glen Line Limited
• Nederlandsche Stoomvaart Maatschappij Oceaan

Subsidiaries and subsequent acquisitions

• Seaway Car Transporters Limited were a wholly owned subsidiary of Elder Dempster
• Guinea Gulf Line – formerly the John Holt Line - was acquired by Elder Dempster in 1965
• Palm Line was acquired in 1984

References

1. "Ocean Line Museum: History". Archived from the original on 7 January 2009. Retrieved 28 March 2009.
2. NFC and Ocean forge £3.2bn alliance to exploit e-commerce The Independent, 22 February 2000

Further reading

• E.J. Gubbins. Managing Transport Operations. Kogan Page. ISBN 0-7494-3928-9.