From our heritage in Reading in the 1970s as the first shipping agent to be based outside of a major port in Southern England, to having twelve strategically placed global offices, our journey continues to demonstrate our desire for growth and our unwavering passion for providing bespoke global logistics to our clients.
Since we began in 1973 as a freight forwarding company, we have continued to rapidly expand across the globe. Throughout the 1980s, we cemented our position in the marine industry by providing yacht racing logistics to a number of prestigious events including the Whitbread Round The World Race and The America’s Cup. As our presence became synonymous with these well-respected events and within the marine industry, the need to grow became apparent and resulted in the appointment of strategically placed agents in the Caribbean, North America and South Africa. Furthermore, we continued to grow our presence in the leisure marine industry by working with esteemed names such as Fairline, Princess and Sunseeker – ensuring these premium brands had an experienced shipping agent to transport their boats.
At the beginning of the 90s, we moved our headquarters to Southampton further establishing our position in the marine industry. Throughout the next decade, we continued to expand to meet the increasing demand for boat shipping solutions across all marine sectors, resulting in further growth and development.
Over the previous two decades, we had truly become a global entity due to rapid expansion, reliable shipping solutions and a desire to provide exemplary service. As a result, in 2005 we were purchased by private investment company, the Constantine Group, who since have provided long-term investment and financial strength, allowing us the opportunity to extend our global reach further.
In parallel to the significant growth in the marine sector, we saw the opportunity to provide additional support to clients in the form of a personal courier service, which became known as Corporate Express Couriers in 1999. This continues to be a key part of the Peters & May Group offering.
Throughout the 2000s, we were able to further expand by opening offices in France and Spain as well as acquiring a US company, Air & Ocean Shipping Inc., which was subsequently named Peters & May USA. The deliberate expansion in these key areas enabled us to further embed our position as a trusted global shipping agent with local knowledge.
As an ongoing business strategy to further enhance our global operations, we continued to establish exclusive partnerships such as Aurora Logistics in Australia – which still exist today.
As our presence in the marine industry continued to thrive, it became apparent a more focused offering of services was required to fulfil the needs of its freight forwarding customers. As a result, we expanded our offering to further meet the demand for logistic solutions within the aviation, automotive and forwarding sectors
In the years following 2010, we further expanded our global footprint by opening offices in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and Hong Kong – increasing the number of global offices to five. These continue to be key locations for our targeted growth in the marine industry.
To support the business’ strategy of global growth within the logistics industry, four further offices – Palma, Hamburg, Shanghai and Genoa – were opened, bringing the total number of wholly owned offices to nine. These global offices continue to provide bespoke logistics solutions in partnership with our trusted agents.
In addition, we continue to evolve and build on the strength of our departments, resulting in the ability to provide complimentary global bespoke multi-modal solutions.
As we continued to grow, in 2017 we setup Bespoke Load Solutions which offers patented technology to simplify cargo handling, both within and beyond the marine sector. This further compliments the Group’s offering and demonstrates our passion to innovate and invest in the logistics industry to deliver bespoke logistics solutions.
The year 2017 also marked the opening of our office in Dubai, followed by offices in the Netherlands and in Singapore in 2018.
In November 2020 we were delighted to announce the appointment of Simon Judson as our new CEO.
Looking towards the future, we continue to focus on providing a personal service by delivering bespoke logistic solutions through our stringent process, meticulous planning and high attention to detail. Whilst continuing to invest in our people and technologies to ensure we provide an unrivalled service for our clients.