Ship Company after 96 years
p. 89 · Read in the full issue
Name change for Union Steam Ship Company after 96 years
Thomas Nationwide Transport, of Australia, and a consortium of New Zealand companies are expecting a smooth takeover of the Union Steam Ship Co. of NZ Ltd., from the P and O Company on January 1. On that day the USS Co., a name known throughout the Pacific for 96 years, will become Tasman Union Ltd.
The new owners will be TNT (NZ) Ltd., a Thomas subsidiary, and New Zealand Maritime Holdings Ltd.
About 30 NZ companies will take up shares in NZ Maritime Holdings.
Two of NZ’s biggest timber com panies, NZ Forest Products Ltd. and Tasman Pulp and Paper Ltd. have each subscribed $1 million.
Mr. E. H. P. Abeles, managing director of TNT, is the first chair man of Tasman Union; Sir Reginald Smythe, managing director of N.Z.
Forest Products, is deputy chairman.
No dramatic operational changes have been announced, but there is sure to be some rationalisation. One change is that P and O have taken over the booking of passengers for their own ships from the USS Co. in New Zealand. A spokesman for TNT, asked in Sydney about Transport
Union acting as P and O agents in a number of Pacific Islands ports, said that was a matter for P and O, the future of those agencies was to be discussed.
“If they wish us to retain the agencies I am sure they will ask us”, he said.
A prediction by PIM in October (p. 101) about the future of P and O agencies in the Pacific Islands produced a reaction in Auckland, where the report appeared to be misread, and in Suva. PIM had sug gested that P and O agencies might pass to another P and O subsidiary, the NZ Shipping Co. Ltd., now P and O (NZ) Ltd., for which Bums Philp are Fiji agents.
P and O (NZ) Ltd. put out a statement in November saying that P and O, London, “had confirmed there is no present intention of changing P and O agency representa tion in Fiji.”
The future of the Holm Shipping Co., a subsidiary of the USS Co. is still undecided. Holm controls 11 ships, a number of which trade to the Pacific Islands. The company is anxious to retain and expand these services.