Home PageExtract from New Zealand Shipping News
On 9th February 1998 P. & O. Nedlloyd announced their acquisition of Blue Star Line Ltd. and its container shipping interests for $ 60 million. During 1997 Blue Star shipped 186,000 TEU on its eleven owned and four chartered ships. The sale was subject to "due diligence", was expected be finalised in about two months, and would be financed out of P.& O. Nedlloyd’s existing facilities. The Vestey Group Ltd. said the sale did not include the conventional refrigerated fleet which it operated with Hamburg-Sud under the Star Reefers name. Their disposal of the container interests was "part of the continuing program of restructuring of the Vestey Group with the strategic aim of forging a focused business playing to its strengths in specialist refrigerated food shipping, trading and distribution and farming. This sale will further strengthen the Vestey Group, enabling it to go forward debt free and with greater potential for investment in the Star Reefers business and Angliss International, our fast-growing food services division" said Sir John Collins, chief executive of the family-owned group. The sale of Blue Star Line leaves Vestey debt-free, with some cash in the bank, three years after the collapse of its Union International and Dewhurst high street butcher subsidiaries, which went into receivership owing about $100 million.
The sale of Blue Star was triggered by a need to cut costs in the face of declining profits. The company was very profitable in 1996, but was at break-even in 1997 and, had the company not been sold, would have had to have looked at making significant cost savings in 1998.
Its eleven owned container ships have a total capacity of about 15,000 TEU, and the four chartered ships of about 7,000 TEU, and it owns 10,000 TEU containers. The owned ships are America Star, Argentina Star, Australia Star, Choyang Sydney, Columbia Star, Fremantle Star, Melbourne Star, New Zealand Star, Queensland Star, Singapore Star and Sydney Star. The chartered ships are Oregon Star, Calapalos, Macaro and Brasil Star. It was stated that, in the New Zealand trades, the Blue Star volumes will be moved on to the P.& O. Nedlloyd systems as soon as practicable, but the acquisition will not affect the timetable of the P.& O. systems’ integration process arising from their earlier merger. The present trans-Pacific container operations of Blue Star Line will not be consolidated with P.& O. Nedlloyd. It is not clear what, if any, disposals of Blue Star Line container ships will result from the takeover, or what will happen to any of these ships which are retained. Renamings such as P&O Nedlloyd Queensland Star perhaps? It is understood that the deal included the purchase of the company name, trademark and goodwill, and that the reefer ships still owned by the Vestey Group will no longer be able to display the famous Blue Star funnel markings. Later information indicated that the Blue Star container ships are to retain their livery and Blue Star identity. P. & O. Nedlloyd finalised the takeover of Blue Star Line on 2nd April 1998.
THE NEW ZEALAND SHIP & MARINE SOCIETY