CP Ships

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CP Ships was a large Canadian container shipping company now part of Hapag Lloyd since late 2005 and re-branded as Hapag-Lloyd Canada.

The company became an independent corporation in 2001 when it was demerged by conglomerate Canadian Pacific Limited (CP) and is incorporated in Saint John, New Brunswick but headquartered in Gatwick, United Kingdom. Its 82 ships were registered in a number countries including the UK, Bermuda, Liberia, and Germany and most of the crews were Asian. Its primary ports remain Montreal and Vancouver.

1 History
2 TUI AG-Hapag-Lloyd
3 International identifiers
4 See also
5 References

[edit] History

In 1884, the Canadian Pacific Railway began purchasing sailing ships as part of a railway supply service on the Great Lakes. In 1887 the company initiated an ocean-going service between the port of Vancouver, British Columbia and Hong Kong which provided a link for its transcontinental railroad passenger and freight services. In 1903 the company began operating ships between Halifax, Nova Scotia and the United Kingdom. Among their growing fleet was the ill-fated liner Empress of Ireland which sank in 1914 in the Saint Lawrence River with the loss of 1,012 lives.

In 1915, the business had grown to the point where it was spun off into a separate entity formerly known as the Canadian Pacific Steamships Ocean Services Ltd. The new company acquired the successful Allan Line and expanded to become a major international cargo carrier and operators of luxury passenger liners such as the Empress of Britain and the Empress of Canada. In both the First and Second World Wars, Canadian Pacific Steamships contributed a large fleet of vessels to the Allied war effort including the conversion of its luxury liners to troop carriers.

By the 1950s, rapidly growing competition from airlines began to cut into the business and the company diversified into tanker fleets and bulk carriers. In 1971, the company changed its name to CP Ships Ltd.

In 1984 it entered a joint venture with Compagnie Maritime Belge called Canada Maritime to secure North Atlantic container traffic for its rail facilities in Montreal. This "new" company prospered and the fortunes of CP Ships revived in the early 1990s and in 1993 Canadian Pacific bought out its partner in Canada Maritime, and that company was merged in CP Ships reviving the fleet. The next decade saw the company grow through acquisition. In 1995 CP Ships purchased the Cast Group, and subsequently bought Lykes Lines, Contship Containerlines, Australia-New Zealand Direct Line, Ivaran Lines, TMM Lines, CCAL, Italia Line. By 2001 it was the seventh largest carrier in the world, and dominated the North Atlantic. When it was spun off into a separate company it represented 25% of Canadian Pacific's revenues and was a source for a large portion of CPR's rail traffic - much originating from CP Ships' Montreal Gateway Terminals.

Soon after gaining its independence the company suffered from a general economic slowdown, however it recovered much faster than its competitors and returned to profitability in 2002. By 2004 the global shipping industry was booming, and consolidating, and CP became the target of a number of take over rumours.

During its independence, CP Ships operated its seven distinct brands (Ivaran and CCAL were not operated as brands after takeover but were absorbed into the Lykes brand) and used the slogan "Regional Focus, Global Scale." However, prior to being bought-out by Hapag Lloyd, CP Ships had already made the decision to get rid of the brand identities and operate solely with the CP Ships brand. For the CP Ships brand they had mostly unlogoed (some had the flag on the back door but no wording) CPSU brown dry box containers as well as refrigerated containers.

[edit] TUI AG-Hapag-Lloyd

On August 21, 2005, German conglomerate TUI AG offered to acquire CP Ships Limited for €1.7 billion (US$2.0 billion) in cash, and merge it with TUI's Hapag-Lloyd division.

On August 30, 2005, Ship Acquisition Incorporated, an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of TUI AG made a formal offer for 100% of CP Ships shares. The deal was approved by the boards of both CP Ships and TUI AG and was presented to CP Ships shareholders for approval.[1]

On October 19, 2005 CP Ships and TUI AG jointly announced that 89.1% of CP Ships shareholders, representing 84,095,325 common shares, had accepted Ship Acquisition Inc.'s August 30 offer. The shares were to be taken up the following day October 20, followed by payment of $21.50 USD per share on October 25, 2005.[2] Following the purchase and merger, TUI AG's combined Hapag-Lloyd and CP Ships fleet will comprise the fifth largest by capacity in the worldwide container shipping market.