Ray Smuts
In line with Safmarine's move toward a single global brand, SafBank has been rebranded Safmarine effective January 1 this year.
SafBank's 2 000 customers in South Africa, Australia and the United States were informed of the change by e-mail and follow-up letter last month and, says Safmarine's media manager Richard Warnes, this will be followed up by an advertising campaign which gets underway this month (January).
The rebranding follows the full acquisition by Safmarine Container Lines N.V. of Andrew Weir Shipping Limited's minority shareholding last November. (FTW November 17, 2000)
Commenting on the name change, Safmarine trade executive Duncan Mackintosh said: With the acquisition of the minority shareholding we can now fully integrate our services into our global network under a single brand.
This allows us to offer our clients all the advantages of our wide pool of equipment and a large and increasing number of trade lanes. To this end we have reviewed our fleet composition and will be able to offer increased capacity for both general purpose and reefer containers.
Trade lanes rebranded with the Safmarine name remain unchanged; Southern Africa to the United States, Canada and Mexico and vice versa (weekly, named day express container service, Australasia to the United States, Canada and vice versa (weekly, named day express container service) and relay services (via Durban) to and from the Indian Ocean Islands of Mauritius, Reunion, Madagascar, Seychelles and Comores.
Employed in the services are seven vessels, Safmarine Nolizwe, Infanta, Cape Norman (Maersk Sealand), Maersk California, MSC Spain, MSC Stefania and MSC Australia.
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