Norfolk Line: Sold?
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UNILEVER's last remaining British transport company looks poised to be sold soon.
Norfolk Line, the Dutch-based unaccompanied trailer and rollon/roll-off ferry operator with a base at Great Yarmouth, may be sold to the Maersk Company, a Danish-owned shipping line.
Talks between Maersk and Unilever are being held to discuss a possible sale of the company, a deal which comes only weeks after the virtual conclusion of the sale of Unilever's SPD distribution subsidiary to the National Freight Consortium (CM, November 10).
Although a British company, Maersk is part of the Danish shipping group, A. P. Moeller.
It owns 18 British-registered ships, moves around 6,000 containers a year through London and Hull and operates an offshore North Sea business from Aberdeen and Peterhead.
Norfolk Line, whose trade union and employee representatives are being consulted over the proposed deal, routes all its traffic through Great Yarmouth and Scheveningen, the Netherlands port at which Norfolk Line's head office is based.
It operates 1,400 trailers, all of them registered in the Netherlands. It uses outside haulage companies, many of them owner drivers, for British traction and was one of the first companies to invest in new equipment for operation at 38 tonnes after the new weight limit was introduced in Britain in May last year.
• An internal reorganisation within the National Freight Consortium will transfer the Fleetcare motor trade company from the National Services Group to the British Road Services Group.
The change, which takes effect on January 1, will maintain Fleetcare's autonomous identity, but managing director Bernard Lou will become a member of the BRS board.
Fleetcare has developed from National Carriers' spare workshop facilities to provide servicing, maintenance and commercial vehicle dealerships for the industry at large.