ive heard on the grapevine that p&o have been taken over by mearsk shipping lock stock and everything that comes with it lorry ships everything.
has anybody heard anything.
what about the drivers cos mearsk dont run any wagons just subbies and p&o leeds have taken down the driver jobs board at leeds con base.
jessicas dad:
what about the drivers cos mearsk dont run any wagons
Who owns and drives all the wgons that say Maersk on the side then?.
According to that link p & o will lose 1500 jobs…more cuts
jessicas dad:
ive heard on the grapevine that p&o have been taken over by mearsk shipping lock stock and everything that comes with it lorry ships everything.has anybody heard anything.
what about the drivers cos mearsk dont run any wagons just subbies and p&o leeds have taken down the driver jobs board at leeds con base.
Maersk have made a formal offer for P&O Nedlloyd, and which the directors have PONL have recommended the shareholders accept. P&O, who hold only 25% of PONL, have accepted. If it goes ahead (probably autumn at least) there will no doubt be some rationalisation.
Although Maersk don’t operate lorries directly, they own Pentalver Transport and, via Pentalver, have now acquired Bowmur Haulage in Cannock. Who knows what will happen, but you coul imagine that Roadways would form the basis of an amalgamated organisation, as they have a nationwide network in place, complete with the containerbases
jessicas dad:
ive heard on the grapevine
Why listen to the grapevine when you could have read this on Sunday gone??
Do not forget that Maersk own Norfolk Line as well. Norfolk operate a number of their own vehicles, and bought the folk from Peterboro who used to do the Kellogs contract. Remember they lost a major part of their O licence for irregularities that happened before the takeover■■?
Most of the European companies appear t be happy having their own depots and trailers and use subbies to pull them, which explains why there seems to be more small co’s and o/ds over there 
jammymutt:
jessicas dad:
what about the drivers cos mearsk dont run any wagonsWho owns and drives all the wgons that say Maersk on the side then?.
subbies in mearsk colours.
Maersk have got their fingers in a ridiculous number of pies…everything from ferries (Norfolk Line), through freight forwarding (basically all Murfitts do in their own right now), to air travel (I kid you not…the check-in desk next to mine in Amsterdam last year was for, amongst other things, Maerskair!!! 
), as well as the container empire for which they are best known.
I wouldn’t be too confident that the RCL lorries will stay. Maersk have a nasty habit of buying up companies for their container storage and reefer facilities (where the money is) and then winding down the transport side. They’ve done this to Pentalver several times, only re-starting it to plug the gaps…the storage side, however, has remained fully operational right the way through.
They have such a reputation for this that many a family rift has developed as a result. Apparently (according to the drivers who were there at the time) a certain Hull firm who shall remain nameless, but who (funnily enough) were on the up in warehousing, reefer services, and, you’ve guessed it, container storage, nearly made this mistake after the founder of the firm died. He left the majority of the shares to one brother, and ultimate control of the firm to the other…
To cut a long story short, the shareholding brother was not impressed, and set up a deal to sell out to Maersk at a hefty profit. At this point Mum stepped in (she still had the last shout) and put her foot down, saying “They’ll just shut us down like they have so many others”. Shareholding brother then turned 'round and flogged the (now split) shareholding to every willing taker in East Yorkshire, including a much smaller interest which went to Maersk…The relationship between the brothers has never been the same since… 
A couple of other points worthy of note…The wagons painted in Maersk colours don’t, as has already been said, actually belong to them. Like many other Shipping Firms - APL, Yang Ming, and Hyundai spring immediately to mind, although there are others - they simply pay a “livery fee” to their regular hauliers for this (SOCL, now DHL, were greatly into it at one point)…the catch being that the painted-up motors could then only be used for pulling containers belonging to the Line in question.
As an aside to the above family story, the “Maersk-ing” of that small slice of the shares eventually proved a lucky fallback for our Hull firm. They had a couple of wagons “dedicated” like this at a point (now also in the past) when a good percentage of their work came from Maersk.
All fine and dandy until a member of the Shipping Lines senior management spotted one of the offending trucks on the M62…not only was it painted in the wrong blue , but it also had 2 20ft Cosco boxes on it’s back!!!
It was only the fact that Maersk would have been damaging their own investment that stopped them from kicking our rather sheepish haulier off their work completely - which may well have been the end of them, at the time!!! 
The other thing of note in all of this, and which I will be curious to see the outcome of, is the fact that P&O Nedlloyd also have a hefty interest - up to 25%, if rumour is to be believed - in Associated Ports’ Southampton Container Terminal. Again, if rumour is to believed, this came about as a speculative move when the original application was made for the new, larger Dibden Bay terminal to be bulit.
That application has since been turned down by the local planners, and has also failed several times on appeal…given the rumblings of discontent over the state of SCT ( turnaround times both land- and ship-side, etc. etc.), and Maersk’s large-scale investment in the expansion of Trinity Terminal at Felixstowe (amongst others), we can only sit back and watch with interest to see how this will affect that notorious port’s future…the local council have wanted shot of the containers for years, with a beady eye on using the land to expand the Car Import/Export Terminals on the Western Docks. The reasons are obvious - more jobs, more money and hence more taxes, and far less HGV traffic…
Interesting times.
I have just come back from sea where I work with Maersk Sealand.
As has been previously stated, Maersk will not be interested in the transport side of things they only want the contianer business.
At the moment they have approx 17% of the world container business, they want to have 25%. Buying P&O will only give them approx 20%.
So they will continue to expand.
Just out of interest,someone told me a few weeks ago that they were building a massive container ternminal/port somewhere along the Thames estuary,Kent or Essex side,supposedely bigger than Felixstowe…The biggest in the whole wide world/Galaxy,well the biggest in Europe or something
Is this true,or just a bit of bull ■■■■ someone made up on a Sunday afternoon. 
i used to work in the container terminal in southampton and i dont think they will ever build at dibden bay. there is to much involved.
Bikemonkey - If it is bull, then it’s certainly tenacious…I’ve been hearing that one for years. Time, no doubt, will tell…certainly the major shipping lines are on the hunt for pastures new, since the existing main terminals are so clogged. Landguard at Felixstowe will be nearly as big as Trinity by the time the planned upgrade is finished…and ports which have, until now, been exclusively Short Sea destinations are looking to jump into the gap in the Deep Sea market and take advantage of this whole mess.
Teesport is the most recent to look for Government backing in this respect, especially since K-line have started running a “Shunter” in from Southampton to the newer terminal (TCT2), plus P&O were certainly showing an interest a few months back…I know this because it happened to be me that was at the front of the queue when they came in for a nosey, and I got used as a “demo” truck to follow through the system - never been tipped and turned so quick in my life!
Jessica’s Dad - The Dibden Bay Fiasco is a classic example of “Just how much can we [zb] this up?”. 
The land they’ve been looking to build it on was originally designated as Industrial, always with a view to moving the containers to that side of the bay. Unfortunately some dimwit on the local council decided to let a few houses be built right on the edge of it…with the result that the residents of these same houses are the ones with the loudest objections to the new Terminal.
The whole thing was made worse when a certain new Operations Manager was brought in (allegedly the same guy who screwed up Trinity, but I don’t know how true that is…) with the remit of “sorting out” SCT in preparation for the next appeal. This must’ve been in late 2002, if memory serves correctly.
He ( who shall remain nameless…but if you were around then you’ll know who I’m talking about ) was basically responsible for the original Superpin system (an appalling failure) and it’s replacement, VBS (another resounding disaster…and now superceded again by VBS2+3, which my contacts down there tell me were/are about as good). When he first started in the job he used to come and stand at the entrance to his shiny new computer booking area and attempt to pacify the drivers when the tailback was too bad…but even he could only take so much abuse!
It got to the point where both his SCT extension and home phone numbers became more closely guarded secrets than the location of Saddam’s nukes. Every now and again one or the other would get “leaked”; I have to confess to being one of the many who took great pleasure in ringing him up at 2am to tell him that I was still sat on his [zb]ing Holding Area… 
Cut an already over-long story short, he went for the whole “look how clogged this port is, and how much we need a bigger one” approach, a decision which led to the then infamous 9-mile queue in October 2002. I was unlucky enough to get caught up in it, and I don’t exaggerate when I say that we really did line up all the way back to the M27. The whole area came to a complete standstill as a result. 2 days in a row.
All very well and good, but one of the main flaws in the Dibden Bay scheme has always been the inadequacy of the road in and out. An upgrade is part of the plan, but after all the troubles around about then (whilst the 9-mile queue was never repeated thanks to the local Police, there was no obvious improvement a year later - except that the trucks were held either at Rownhams Services or on the quayside/internal roads of the Western Dock itself…away from public view in other words) the natives and council alike understandably panicked, and quietly pointed out that if he couldn’t organise a 3-berth terminal, why on earth should they let him have a 6-berth one!!!
Suffice to say that our favourite Operations Manager has since…er…moved on.
The result of the April 2004 decision on the matter can be found HERE…although I doubt that will be the end of the matter. I haven’t been down there for a while, so am a little out of the loop on the latest now, but I’m sure my spies will oblige should anything major happen…and the odd trip down to load at Bacardi Martini will no doubt fill in the rest. 
God, I’ve written an epic again…I really must get “tipped” and get out more!!!
Lucy:
The other thing of note in all of this, and which I will be curious to see the outcome of, is the fact that P&O Nedlloyd also have a hefty interest - up to 25%, if rumour is to be believed - in Associated Ports’ Southampton Container Terminal. Again, if rumour is to believed, this came about as a speculative move when the original application was made for the new, larger Dibden Bay terminal to be bulit.With regard to the shareholding in SCT, I believe that the shareholding is split 49/51 between ABP and P&O Ports (not P&O Nedlloyd, as such), but I can’t remember which way round it is.
The new VBS developments, in themselves, have things to offer, but mandatory VBS and charges to hauliers most definitely do not. Some shipping lines are not in favour and one, which makes its own VBS bookings, is refusing to pay. Interesting situation if SCT try to refuse a shipping line (i.e. a customer) access to its own boxes when it has already paid terminal handling charges.
the thing with southampton as a port in general they are dying to make it bigger because its the only port in the uk that has 2 tides or 3 tides whatever it is its 1 more than the other ports.
so they can turn the ships round quicker and woe bitide the company that makes the ship miss the tide because then there are big ructions.