P&O Ferries

[DelBoy]

Just announced that DP World (I believe this to be Dubai based company) have bought P&O Ferries for £3.3Billion pounds!

DP World have said that there will be no staff cuts but no comment on cross channel prices - watch this space.

Del

[geoffd]

Actually they've bought P&O SN which also includes some profit making companies! They've bought it for its Port Operations business which does make money so of the £3.3Billion about £3.30 was for the ferry bit! 
Its more likely that they'll be accepting offers for the Ferries business some time soon,  so maybe we should have a whip round?

[Lorry]

I suspect the Ferry side will be flogged off soon, but who will buy it - Eurotunnel - to close it down?

[Robbo SPS]

I wondered when P&O would finish as a business in its current guise.

Ferries will be sold very quickly. Watch out for the vultures on Dover straits.

[Bob U]

Not too soon I hope, I've booked and paid for next year

[Lorry]

Ferries will be sold very quickly. Watch out for the vultures on Dover straits.

Shouldn't it be "Bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover"  Which is strange as I think they're natives of America.

And I've bl00dy well paid too

[rcutler]

P&O sale from Pompy only, who's sailings ended at the end of Sept. Dover sailings are P&O Stena, a joint company with Stena Line from Norway probably not technically part of the P&O group.

[Lorry]

Didn't P&O buy Stena out, who may not exist as they were replaced by a bridge (wasn't something similar supposed to happen here?)

[geoffd]

Yes they did, some years ago! Hence the branding is P&O Ferries!  They also run a North Sea Route and some Irish Sea routes too.

[rcutler]

Stena Line still sail from UK to both Ireland and Holland aswell as other routes in Scandanavia.

[Lorry]

I wonder if they're thinking of going back to Dover?  Somebody must be able to make good money out of it if Speed Ferries can

[Robbo SPS]

P&O Ferries are

Portsmouth to Bilbao
Dover to Calais

North Sea Ferry Routes
Northern Irish routes ( although only a few left )
And a route Ireland to Cherbourg.

The old Portsmouth routes are gone, contracts ripped up and no mentions of them.

Only the "money" making routes surviced the last round of cuts, hence Portsmouth went by by.


The OLD stena deal was a 60 / 40 split, stena being the minor share holders of that route. Within a few years and the Mergers and monoploy commision happy P&O re-branded and the final 40% was bought out. Stena still have market share on the Wales to Ireland routes and UK - Holland.

As part of the agreed deal on the Dover straits, the old Liverpool P&O freight routes and ships were transferred to Stena line, hence they increased their market share.


Hope that clears that one.

[DelBoy]

Left hand versus right hand!!!

I have just received a mail shot from P & O extolling the benefits of their ferries???

Also includes offer of £35 each way (including all taxes etc) Dover-Calais, for car and up to 9 people for any duration over 24 hours.

Has the company sale not filtered down to the marketting department??

Del

[smokie]

When I worked for P&O Dover (OK, a few years ago now) I was actually employed by the holding company which was European Ferries.

They owned all the Dover/Portsmouth (and other more northerly) routes and, of course, Townsend Thoreson, which was re-branded following the Zeebrugge disaster.

Mind you, that was 18 years ago...

[Steve Pyro]

Even though I've recently been bombarded by emails for P&O with their cheap Dover / Calais deals, there's been no confirmation that it's 'business as usual' following the buy out.

I've booked Speedferries Dover / Boulogne again. £50 return - out first thing Wednesday, back 21:00 Monday.