Zim Integrated Shipping Services
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Zim Integrated Shipping Services (Hebrew: צים), formerly Zim American Israeli Shipping and ZIM Israel Navigation Company, is the biggest cargo shipping company in Israel, and 13th largest in the world. The name ZIM means "Fleet" or "big ships" in biblical Hebrew.
ZIM was founded in 1945. It purchased its first ship together with Harris and Dixon (based in London). This vessel was refurbished, renamed "Kedmah", and sailed to Palestine in the summer of 1947. During her first years, her main task was transporting hundreds of thousands of immigrants to the emerging state. Some of the other ships that had been used for clandestine immigration before the establishment of Israel as a state and were confiscated by the British mandate authorities and later joined the company's fleet. The company continued to purchase more ships, among them "Negba", "Artza" and "Galila".
During the 1948 war, the company was the sole maritime connection with the state of Israel, supplying food, freight and military equipment.
In 1953, some of the money from the reparations agreement between Israel and West Germany was allocated to the purchase of 36 new ships, this was a massive expansion of ZIM's fleet.
The 1950s and 1960s saw ZIM concentrate on passenger ships, alongside a constant expansion of the cargo shipping business. Passenger liners were a common means of international transport before the emergence of cheap air transport, and pleasure cruises were also popular. ZIM sailed the Mediterranean Sea, as well as having regular routes to the United States. Some of its ships cruised to the Caribbean during the winter. 1964 saw the completion of the passenger ship "Shalom", which turned out to be a failure, marking the end of the ZIM passenger shipping era.
During the 1960s ZIM started to focus on cargo ships, and obtained several special-purpose vessels, including refrigerated shipping, and oil tankers. ZIM transported crude oil from Iran to Israel, and oil byproducts from Israel to Europe.
The 1970s saw ZIM expanding into to the container shipping business. ZIM ordered 6 such ships, and gradually made this its main line of business.
In 1981 one of the company's ships - "Mezada", was lost at sea.
ZIM suffered, alongside other shipping companies, from the lull in maritime shipping at the beginning of the 1980s, but it recovered, and during the 1990s had 15 more ships built in Germany.
The ownership of ZIM was divided between the Israeli government and "Hachevra Le-Israel", but since 2004 is privately owned by the Ofer brothers group. The new official name after privatization became Zim Integrated Shipping Services.
The company's US agency, called Zim American Israel Navigation Company moved from the World Trade Center on September 4, 2001 to Norfolk, Virginia, but not all computer systems were moved. ZIM was affected by the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks with the loss of these systems.
