Christian Salvesen

Type	Subsidiary
Founded	1872
Key people	Christian Salvesen (founder)
Industry	Transport Logistics
Parent	Norbert Dentressangle

A Christian Salvesen lorry in 2009

Christian Salvesen was a European transport and logistics company with a long and varied history, employing 13,000 staff and operating in seven countries in the United Kingdom and western Europe. Since December 2007 it has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of French-listed transport group Norbert Dentressangle.

[edit] Early history

Christian Salvesen traces its origins to a partnership named Salvesen and Turnbull, set up in 1846. Christian Salvesen himself joined the partnership after migrating from Mandal, Norway in 1851. Later, in 1872, Salvesen left the partnership and set up Christian Salvesen & Co., based in Leith near Edinburgh, Scotland. Initially the company operated as shipping and forwarding agents, shipbrokers and timber merchants.

In the early 1900s, the company developed significant interests in whaling, initially in the Arctic, and then in the Antarctic. They established and operated from a base at Leith Harbour (named for Salvesen's base in Scotland) on the island of South Georgia, to the south west of the Falkland Islands. In the years 1950-1962 the whaling ships Southern Harvester and Southern Venturer belonged to the company. These ships were floating factories, and the core of a whaling expedition. Each expedition consisted of a floating factory, and about ten whale-catchers. One of the company's whale-catchers, Southern Actor, now lies at the whaling museum in Sandefjord, Norway, and is preserved as a floating museum ship.

As the boom in whaling ended after World War II, Salvesen moved into the commercial trawler business and also bought a cold store in Grimsby. It traded primarily in housebuilding, general food freezing and oil before moving back into the transport business by buying Swift Services.

[edit] Post-whaling

Salvesens exited the whaling industry in 1963 and reinvented itself as a major European transport and logistics company. In 1985, after many very successful entrepreneurial years, the company went public as a diversified industrial group, with interests in shipping, brick manufacture, housebuilding, cold storage and distribution and generator hire. As a public company the business focussed on European logistics, buying Swift Transport Services in 1993. The non-logistics businesses were sold during this period.

Salvesen have had mixed fortunes since the early 1990s. A potential take-over by Hays plc in 1996 which could have valued the shares in the 350-400 pence range did not result in a formal offer. This did however lead to the spin-off of the generator hire business, Aggreko in 1997 and the arrival of a new Chief Executive, Edward Roderick, who lead the business until his sacking in 2004. During this period a Swedish investor Custos discussed buying the company, and yet again no formal offer was issued to shareholders.

In 2004 a merger was proposed with Tdg plc but this failed largely it seems to the pre-merger positioning of key executives from both companies. Today Salvesen is a financial shadow of its former self, but does however remain one of the UK and Western Europe's major logistics companies with a reputation for sound operations.

On the October 2, 2007, the board recommended a cash offer by Norbert Dentressangle for £254.4 million to buy Christian Salvesen, and the takeover became effective from December 14, 2007.