SHIPPING COMBINE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 1 April 1930, Page 6

SHIPPING COMBINE

INTERESTING PREDICTION LORD KYLSANT’S INTERESTS i LONDON, 16th March. Lord Ivylsant, shipping magnate, has predicted the formation of a giant shipping combine. At the annual meeting of Lamport and Holt, Limited, a shareholder asked Lord Kylsant ho v he could expect to give the company efficient service as chairman and managing director when he was the chairman or director of 40 companies. Lord Kylsant replied that he did not consider 40 too many. “I am a director of a bank, of a railway company and of a shipping company,” he said. “The remainder are all shipping concerns which I regard as one, and if I am spared for a few more years I hope to see them one—such a company as Britain need not he ashamed of.”

The chairman attributed shipping difficulties to the fall in the market value of Lamport and Holt’s shipping investments, to the world-wide depression in trade and industry, the Wall Street crash and the fall in commodity prices. He said lie thought the slump, which had lasted since 1920, showed signs of ending.

Lord Kylsant, who is 67 years of age, and owns more than 6000 acres in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire, is chairman- and managing director of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, the White Star Line, the Union Castle Line, and their associated companies, which include the Aberdeen Line, into which the Australian Commonwealth Line was absorbed. He is also chairman of Harland and Wolff, Ltd., the Belfast shipbuilding firm, and a director of the Southern Railway and of the Midland Bank.