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John Swire & Sons Pty Ltd.

  • Shipping
  • Cold Storage and Distribution Services
  • Road Haulage
  • Materials Handling
  • Agriculture
  • Headquartered in Sydney since 1952, John Swire & Sons Pty is a wholly owned subsidiary of John Swire & Sons Ltd.

    Swire's business interests in Australia date from its early 19th-century import-export operations. After the Second World War, Swire's trade with Australia prospered on the back of regular passenger and cargo liner services.

    Today, John Swire & Sons Pty coordinates Swire's interests throughout Australia, providing management for local subsidiaries and acting as agent in Australia for its businesses overseas.

    Swire's interests in Australia focus on cold storage, refrigerated distribution services, road transportation, materials handling, arable and livestock farming and liner shipping services. Swire is the market leader in the field of refrigerated storage and the distribution of perishable foodstuffs, and in specialist road haulage businesses in every state in Australia. Swire has invested substantially in rural properties in New South Wales and Queensland, where it produces four key commodities: cotton, wool, beef and wheat.

    SHIPPING

    John Swire & Sons Pty Ltd. provides management, accounting and administrative services in Sydney for some of The China Navigation Co Ltd's liner shipping trades.

    Continuing a long-standing relationship between The China Navigation Co. Ltd. and Australia, vessels operated by its subsidiary, Swire Shipping Ltd., currently make more than 500 port calls each year around the Australian coast.

    • Swire Shipping Agencies (Holdings) Pty Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of The China Navigation Co. Ltd., holds the Group's interests in shipping agencies in Singapore, Malaysia, New Caledonia and The Marshall Islands, as well as in Australia. Its subsidiary, Swire Shipping Agencies Pty Ltd., provides those services for Swire Shipping's liner shipping trades with offices in five ports in Australia.

    COLD STORAGE AND DISTRIBUTION SERVICES

    • Swire Cold Storage Pty Ltd.
      This wholly owned subsidiary of John Swire & Sons Pty Ltd. was formed in 2004, following the consolidation of Woodmasons, Frigmobile and South Australian Cold Stores (SACS) and the acquisition of the P. Cleland assets in Western Australia and Victoria. Swire Cold Storage is Australia's largest cold-chain logistics service provider, offering temperature-controlled warehousing, refrigerated transport and distribution services to a broad range of customers throughout the country. These customers include Australia's largest food producers, distributors and retailers as well as export bulk commodity clients. In order to accommodate the range of services required by these various supply chains, Swire Cold Storage offers everything from automated blast freezing and sortation, to cross-dock order picking.
    • Swire Cold Storage operates a network of 22 temperature-controlled warehouses located in every state of Australia. The company facilities total in excess of 1.75 million cubic metres (62 million cubic feet), or 250,000 pallet spaces of refrigerated storage, ranging from fully automated high-rise stores to traditional manual facilities.

      Swire Cold Storage supports these facilities with a modern fleet of nearly 300 refrigerated vehicles operating under Frigmobile and Cold Chain Logistics brand names. Consolidation and delivery options range from individual carton deliveries to 68 pallet B-double trailer loads, further enhancing the company's ability to offer tailor-made solutions to all destinations for all its customers.

    ROAD HAULAGE

    • Kalari Holdings Pty Ltd.
      Kalari is a wholly owned subsidiary of John Swire & Sons Pty Ltd., which provides specialist storage and distribution for a number of Australia's leading manufacturers. The company is widely recognised as an innovative and environmentally conscious operator and now encompasses the operations and services previously provided by Transwest.
    • With its fleet of over 200 specialised vehicles and depots throughout the Australian mainland, the company is equipped to transport and store a variety of bulk and low-density products requiring specialised handling. These range from aluminium products, fertilizers, cement, quarry products, structural and scrap steel, ammonium nitrate and tissue paper, to dangerous goods, including petroleum products, sulphuric acid, caustic soda, and a range of raw materials for Australia's largest glass manufacturers.

    MATERIALS HANDLING

    • Swire Materials Handling Pty Ltd.
      This division was created in 2006 and incorporates the wholly-owned subsidiary of Swire Industrial Services Pty Ltd, a 51% shareholding in Alex Fraser Pty Ltd and a minority interest in MultiServ.
    • Swire Industrial Services Pty Ltd.
      This company was formed to manage and expand the waste handling and steel processing services formerly operated by Transwest Haulage Holdings Pty Ltd. These operations include contracts for the collection and disposal of dry and liquid industrial and domestic waste and specialised scrap steel collection and recycling at Westernport as well as the operation of a specialised 'coolant' production facility and crushing and recycling services at Port Kembla.
    • Alex Fraser Pty Ltd.
      The shareholding in Alex Fraser was acquired in January 2006. This family-owned business was established 127 years ago and is Australia's largest construction and demolition ('C&D') waste materials recycler, with a longstanding reputation as one of the country's leading industrial demolition specialists. The company produces a range of leading edge, high performance, recycled asphalt products including the Enviropatch, Enviromix and Enviromastic ranges, and also deals in scrap metals and materials salvage. Alex Fraser has six recycling sites - three each in Melbourne and Brisbane - and to date has recycled and sold over 12 million cubic metres of C&D material. The Alex Fraser Group, which includes Alex Fraser Asphalt Pty Ltd., has won Australia's most prestigious environmental award, the Gold Banksia, as well as the Banksia Award for Resource Conservation and Waste Minimisation. The Group has also won the Prime Minister's Award for Environmental Leadership.
    • Multiserv NSW Pty Ltd.
      Multiserv is a joint venture between Swire Materials Handling and Heckett Multiserv. The company specialises in materials handling, metal recovery, slag pot carrying, scrap metal processing and the briquetting of industrial dusts and minerals. Its customers are Bluescope Steel at Port Kembla in New South Wales, OneSteel at Whyalla in South Australia, and Smorgons at Laverton in Victoria.

    AGRICULTURE

    • Clyde Agriculture Ltd.

      This wholly owned subsidiary of John Swire & Sons Pty is a major agricultural landowner in northern New South Wales and western Queensland. The company's portfolio encompasses some of the most historic pastoral properties in Australia, including Portland Downs, Thylungra, Toorale, Merrimba, Brewon, Beemery, Pier Pier, Wingadee and Oxley. The most recent acquisitions have been Bundemar Park, Clover Downs and Wirribilla.

    • The township of Bourke, in northern New South Wales, is at the centre of the company's cotton-growing activities. Clyde has some 27,000 acres developed for irrigated cotton in this region and the company operates its own cotton 'gin' at Bourke, producing around 60,000 bales each season. Clyde also owns the Port of Bourke Hotel.

      With a current portfolio of over 1.8 million acres, Clyde Agriculture grazes up to 350,000 head of merino and crossbred sheep and 36,000 head of cattle, producing medium fibre wool, mutton, lamb and beef for export. The company also grows 60,000 acres of wheat and other winter crops.

     

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