_full_alt_author_running_head (neem stramien B2 voor dit chapter en nul 0 in hierna): 0 _full_alt_articletitle_running_head (oude _articletitle_deel, vul hierna in): J. Lauritzen _full_article_language: en indien anders: engelse articletitle: 0 96 Chapter 5 Chapter 5 J. Lauritzen In 1884, the consul Ditlev Lauritzen (1859-1935) moved from his hometown Ribe in Western Denmark to Esbjerg to start the company J. Lauritzen1. The company was named after Ditlev’s father since Ditlev was under 25 years old and not of age to start a business. He started an import business with wood, coal and fodder. He began with chartered ships for his imports but bought a few ships in late 1880s and could call himself a ship-owner. In 1895, the newly started shipowning company Vesterhavet, had a fleet of three ships. The fleet grew remarkably, and merely five years later, another seven ships had been added to the fleet. Lauritzen was both a shipowner and a shipbroker until 1918 when he closed down his shipbroking office. Apart from shipping, many of Lauritzen’s businesses were onshore. The Ditlev Lauritzen as portrayed by re- searcher Ole Lange is a truly dynamic entrepreneur, constantly on the move, catching new opportunities wherever they would arise. But it was the shipping business that was the core, and more precisely the transportation of coal, wood and cotton. By the end of 1914, the fleet comprised 26 ships. At about that time, the headquarters moved to Copenhagen. Sometimes Lauritzen’s ships carried fruit as a backhaul cargo – the first shipment of oranges was from the Spanish Mediterranean coast to England in a conventional general cargo vessel in 1905. 1 Mediterranean Adventures The time during the First World War was, not surprisingly, turbulent. For Lau- ritzen, the increasing demand for ships during the war served as an impetus to sell off the current fleet and order new ships. This was in line with his vision to have a fully controlled shipping company of about 50 modern ships. The strat- egy was successful and after the war, the fleet was sold, and what was left was a number of competent employees and 16 ships on order at German shipyards. After the war, Lauritzen continued ordering ships to profit from the post-war 1 The section on Lauritzen is based on Lange, O. 1995. Logbog for Lauritzen, Copenhagen: Handelshøjskolens forlag., Thorsøe, S. 1984, J. Lauritzen 1884-1984, Gravesend: World Ship Society., Tolerton 2008. Lauritzens corporate website <http://www.j-lauritzen.com>, the cor- porate magazine Lauritzen News, and interviews with former executives and employees at Lauritzen reefer division or LPR. © Thomas Taro Lennerfors and Peter Birch, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004393868_006Thomas Taro Lennerfors and Peter Birch - 9789004393868 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NCDownloaded License. from Brill.com10/02/2021 10:16:24AM via free access _full_alt_author_running_head (neem stramien B2 voor dit chapter en nul 0 in hierna): 0 _full_alt_articletitle_running_head (oude _articletitle_deel, vul hierna in): J. Lauritzen _full_article_language: en indien anders: engelse articletitle: 0 J. Lauritzen 97 boom. In the summer of 1919, he had 28 ships on order. But, since many other ship-owners also ordered ships en masse, the rates decreased in 1920. Some ships were cancelled, but in 1924 the fleet comprised 28 almost new ships. Also, Lauritzen ventured into buying the Køge shipyard, a venture that turned into a failure due to the post-war slump and lack of competence in managing a ship- yard. The market downturn affected the tramp market first, where Lauritzen was most active. It was no longer profitable to be in tramp shipping, so Lauritzen needed to rethink the business strategy. The changes were made in two dimen- sions. First, Lauritzen sought new, less turbulent markets, and therefore he ex- panded his business in the Mediterranean, rather than mainly sailing in the Baltic and the North. Also, he sought to reduce his exposure to market fluctua- tions by entering into more long-term contracts. Rather than being an inde- pendent player, Lauritzen entered into collaborations with other shipping companies, for example with Swedish Lloyd, but sometimes, however, he also played the role of an aggressive upstart. In the Mediterranean, there were often opportunities to carry fruit back to Northern Europe. In 1923, of about 70 voyages to the Mediterranean, on 39 re- turn voyages, fruit was carried from Spain in ventilated fruit carriers. In 1925, Lauritzen opened its first foreign office in Valencia, which would directly cater to the fruit trades. In September-October, grapes and apricots were transport- ed, in November-January, oranges and bananas. During the winter of 1926, Ditlev’s son Ivar Lauritzen – who by the way was married to Lillian Kirkebye, daughter of the Fyffes banana importer A.W. Kirkebye, went to Spain and France to negotiate freight rates and conditions for fruit transport. He was just 26 years old. He, and his brother Knud, would represent Lauritzen’s strategic shift into the reefer segment. This was an impor- tant event in Lauritzen’s history, because from that time, fruit transport was to become one of Lauritzen’s two main activities (the other one being wood and pulp from Finland). The contracts negotiated by Ivar were one-year long and Lauritzen’s strategy of being less dependent on the spot market was being im- plemented. For both reefer and dry cargo, Lauritzen had to charter in six ships in 1926 and eight ships in 1927. In 1927, it was time for Lauritzen to create its own liner service. Given that Lauritzen was an established player in the Mediterranean fruit market, the company was approached by a consortium of Sicilian fruit growers. They were not happy with the fact that the conference Associate Liners serving the Sicil- ian fruit export had increased their freight rates by 25%. Lauritzen established a line with scheduled departures from Sicily to Liverpool using eight to ten steamers. The conference strongly retaliated with lowered rates. Lauritzen did Thomas Taro Lennerfors and Peter Birch - 9789004393868 Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 10:16:24AM via free access 98 Chapter 5 not give in but continued competing, with the hope that they would be asked to join the conference. This did not happen, but the line continued carrying oranges and citrus from Sicily, later expanded to the north of Italy, to the UK until 1935 when sanctions against Italy made Lauritzen discontinue the line. 2 Worldwide Growth In February 1932, Lauritzen was contacted by French fruit interests. The com- pany that was going to transport their bananas from West Africa to France had suddenly turned down the business, and another solution needed to be found. Lauritzen had experience with fruit transport, but only had ventilated fruit carriers, which were not regularly used for long-distance banana transports. However, due to the urgency of the situation, Lauritzen got the contract and successfully transported the bananas from Conakry in French West Africa to Nantes in the ships Grete and Ulla. Each ship made a profit of 20 000 DKK. After this success, Lauritzen offered to take care of the transport for Companie Gé- nérale Transatlantique, which catered for the West Indies, and Agences Mari- times Henry Lesage, carrying bananas from West Africa. Six ships were converted to reefers: Grete, Ulla, Erna, Else, Betty and Edith. They all had a re- frigerated hold capacity of about 100 000 cbf and a speed of 11-12 knots. Laurit- zen also joined a conference with Swedish Lloyd and DFDS transporting Jaffa fruit from Palestine and established a line from Sicily to Gdynia in Poland. Also, a line was established from Canary Islands via North Africa to Antwerp based on bananas and general cargo. The banana traffic was lucrative, generating a surplus in 1932 of 634 000 DKK, more than half of the total surplus of Laurit- zen’s shipping business. It was therefore not remarkable that Lauritzen contin- ued pursuing this segment. The first newbuilding that was tailormade for refrigerated cargo was Helga, built in 1932. It had refrigeration equipment from Atlas, and Atlas would be a strong partner for Lauritzen’s technological development. Her maiden voyage was to Chile to pick up a load of apples for Oslo. After the start in the Mediterranean, in 1933, Ditlev’s younger son Knud Lau- ritzen went to New York to negotiate with South American exporters, the result of which was a number of contracts, from Chile and Equador to the U.S., Brazil, and Europe. The results from reefer shipping were good in the mid 1930s but the outlook was considered to be insecure due to increasing competition. Eight new reefers, Stella, Ninna, Laura, Jonna, Jutta, Paula, Asta, and Dora were delivered in 1933 and 1934 from Danish shipyards with state guaranteed loans. In this period of depression, it was a win-win deal. Helga and Ninna were Thomas Taro Lennerfors and Peter Birch - 9789004393868 Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 10:16:24AM via free access J. Lauritzen 99 Figure 9 Lauritzen was the first independent reefer operator to establish itself in the global fruit trade. Pictured is the African Reefer in Puerto Cuatreros, Argentina in 1939 Photo: Unknown sold in 1934 at a good profit. Six ships were ordered in the summer of 1935, of which three were reefers. A few months later, Asta and Dora were sold to French fruit related companies due to flag discrimination that hindered Lau- ritzen from participating in the French fruit traffic. The reason for all the new- buildings was that Lauritzen believed in the future of the shipping market. He stated that he wanted to sell 30 of his ships and buy 30 new ships, because you can’t stay “in the same, old clogs”, a discursive sign of a subjective belief in a modern fleet.