Pacific Seaways and Seatrade to combine their Chilean activities

Seatrade, one of the world's largest reefer operators and owners, specialising in reefer logistics, and Pacific Seaways, Chile's most important shipping group, created and managed by fruit growers/exporters; have joined forces to establish Global Reefers NV. a company which aims to offer the industry the most efficient service on specialised reefers and container lines from Chile, Peru and Colombia to the world.

Global Reefers NV has begun its operations in October 2013; its Board of Directors, in which Seatrade and Pacific Seaways are equally represented, has designated Francisco Labarca, the current CEO of Pacific Seaways, as the company’s Managing Director. The new company, based in Valparaíso (Chile), strengthens their common goal of ensuring "reliable, fast, direct and dedicated reefer shipping logistics towards the future", as their executives have stated.

The new Managing Director has stated that “the union between these companies is a unique and new way of operating, which will allow the fruit and shipping industries to work together consolidating the best transport alternatives for Chile’s product. The freezes that have affected our country’s agriculture will seriously impact the Chilean volumes and have once again put in the spotlight the need to coordinate efforts to find more efficient ways of ensuring the adequate size, timing and quantity of good quality reefer ships.”

Along the same lines, Seatrade’s CEO Yntze Buitenwerf stated that “our development goes hand in hand with the growth of our customers, and this platform will give us further possibilities to invest in the reefer business”.

For more information:
Francisco Labarca
Pacific Seaways
Tel: + (56) 2 2432 9133

Yntze Buitenwerf
Seatrade Reefer Chartering
Tel: + (32) 3 544 9493