Delmas (shipping company)

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The French shipping company Delmas , based in Le Havre , has existed since 1867. Its main shipping area is Africa.

history

ConRo freighter Rokia Delmas stranded on the coast of the Charente-Maritime department in France on the night of October 24, 2006
Multi-purpose container carrier Blandine Delmas
Multi-purpose container ship Flora Delmas

Beginnings

The company was founded in La Rochelle in 1867 as Delmas Frères by the brothers Frank and Julien Delmas . They operated a liner service between La Rochelle and the islands of Île de Ré and Quiberon . In 1878 they began to import coal from South Wales to France and in 1895 they extended their trade to North Africa. From 1920 West African ports were also called and from 1929 the services were extended to the east coast ports of the United States and Canada.

Vieljeux

Léonce Vieljeux joined the company in 1898. He was married to Helène Delmas and was later appointed President of the shipping company, which operated as Delmas Frères et Vieljeux from 1919 and under the name Compagnie Delmas-Vieljeux from 1935 . Vieljeux was elected mayor of La Rochelle in 1930 and 1935 and shot in the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in 1944 because of his work in the Resistance . The company entered the Second World War with six of its own ships and 13 ships managed for the Compagnie des chemins de fer de l'Ouest ; in 1944, 14 ships were still available.

post war period

In 1947, the shipping company was renamed Société Navale Delmas Vieljeux (SNDV) and increasingly specialized in north-south traffic between Europe and Africa. In 1957 the shipping company again had 20 ships, in 1960 there were 30 ships.

In 1985 the company was renamed Société Navale et Commerciale Delmas-Vieljeux and in 1989 the shipping company acquired the naming and trading rights of the Palm Line , the Elder Dempster Lines and the Guinea Gulf Line, which ran them up to the Elder-Dempster- Agency network but no further.

Acquisitions

The Bolloré group succeeded in 1996 in the hostile takeover of Delmas, which was then renamed SCAC-Delmas-Vieljeux (SDV). The shipping company then lost market share and laid off around 140 employees in the course of several restructurings. In 1994 Delmas-Vieljeux still owned 14 ships.

The French competitor CMA CGM acquired Delmas-Vieljeux in September 2005 for around 600 million euros from the Bolloré Group. The Delmas staff supported the sale on the condition that Delmas remained independent and Le Havre the company headquarters. Trading was completed on January 5, 2006. In 2008 the shipping company operated a worldwide network with around 73 container RoRo and multi-purpose ships.

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