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IRELAND


Andy Humphries, who founded liner agent and freight forwarder Aquaship 18 years ago, is adjusting to life as part of the Aramex empire – and is highly motivated by the new opportunity. The Dubai- based forwarding and logistics firm bought the Irish freight forwarder towards the end of February.


All Aquaship’s staff, except


two who didn’t want to relocate to the other side of Dublin, have stayed on under Humphries, who becomes ocean freight manager in Ireland for Aramex. Tommy Kelly, Aramex CEO for Europe and North America, says: “The synergies between these two companies are immense, and the new growth opportunities are tremendous.”


The company sees opportunities as to food cross-sell in


areas of Aquaship specialization, such


products,


pharmaceuticals and high-end art movements. But the deal didn’t happen without a lot of soul-searching by Humphries. “When Aramex first approached, I said no. I thought for six or seven months about whether I could give away my baby after all my years of building


it up, but the pros massively outweighed the cons. The last six months have been much more positive in the market and now we can put this on a much bigger stage.” Liner agency work pretty much disappeared for Humphries when the CP Ships group was acquired a few years back, but Aquaship Agencies continued to prosper in the form of Ireland North


Atlantic Line (INAL), an NVOCC set up specifically to navigate customers through the maze of options on offer from the 40-plus shipping lines serving the market from Ireland to North America. “We became a pure freight forwarder and set up INAL as a vehicle to book space,” Humphries


says. “Aramex is


building an American network and that market was our speciality. Some lines had been reluctant to talk to a smaller forwarder, but this is a great platform. “Westbound we are shipping 40 to 50teu per week, and the goal now would be to double that, with 75teu from Ireland. Out of Europe, Aramex had very little before, just some traffic from the Netherlands, though of course it is stronger in the Middle East. Long term, the market could be 10,000teu in total, east and westbound. There’s not much moving east at the moment, until we’ve built our sales operation over there.”


Aramex has brought Boston online to supplement its existing New York and Toronto offices, and Chicago will follow. INAL had mainly accessed the North American market through New York and Norfolk, so the synergies are clear, and Humphries is still looking to come up with new


ISSUE 2 2011 Aramex buys 18 years of transatlantic know-how


Humphries: operating on a bigger stage after Aramex acquisition


products. “We will develop a heavyweight inland distribution service for the US, up to 24 tonnes instead of the normal 20. It demands an increased freight rate, but effectively you get a free box for every four you send.”


Pharmaceuticals, frozen meat and drinks will continue to drive Irish exports in future, Humphries says. “The diversity of our manufacturing base has gone. But food is as big today as it was when I first entered the market, and things have rebalanced as imports have slowed up. “Ireland was a container depot up to 18 months ago but now we’re having to reposition equipment here.”


Bulk business keeps Waterford buoyant


DFDS is pulling administrative staff out of its office in the port of Waterford in June to consolidate in Dublin. But Stan McIlvenny, port chief executive, is confident the company will maintain its vessel-sharing agreement with Samskip through Waterford. Currently, an 850teu Samskip vessel calls at the port on a Sunday night and a 720teu DFDS ship on a Thursday night. Both call at Rotterdam and Zeebrugge. The services sail fairly full but container traffic through Waterford is back down to its 2002 level, McIlvenny says. This was mostly because of Cobelfret’s change to a ro-ro strategy through Dublin. Waterford recorded a 19% increase in bulk shipments last year, with an 80% increase in eastbound


exports of mainly


agricultural bulk products offset by reduced imports of timber, steel and cement, reflecting the reduction in construction activity. His real concern is the reduction in consumers’ discretionary spending. “The December budget took €6


billion out of the economy and it’s estimated this will deflate the economy by 1%. The new government can’t really do much different. We’re being run by the IMF and the European Central Bank now. My worry isn’t this year, but next. We’re spending and consuming less.”


McIlvenny remains “a committed European” and believes deeper integration


is


inevitable, though he accepts this will create problems for Ireland if it is not allowed to maintain its low rate of corporation tax.


The 14% unemployment rate in the Republic, down from 4% at the height of the Celtic Tiger, would be even higher were it not for the fact that emigration has begun again. “It’s the young who are leaving, at 1,000 a week. They won’t be coming back, and these were the people who were going to be paying for our pensions,” McIlvenny says. “It will be 10 years before there is any significant change in our economic prospects.”


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