Sea Containers

Sea Containers Ltd. was a Bermuda-registered company which operated two main business areas: transport and container leasing. The company filed for bankruptcy on 16 October 2006. In 2009 its maritime container interests were transferred to a new company SeaCo Ltd, with the winding down and liquidation of the remainder of the group continuing.

History

Yale University graduate and retired United States Navy officer James Sherwood founded Sea Containers in 1965, with initial capital of $100,000. Over 40 years, Sherwood expanded Sea Containers from a supplier of leased cargo containers, into various shipping companies, as well as expanding the company into luxury hotels and railway trains, including the Venice-Simplon Orient Express and the Great North Eastern Railway franchise from London to Edinburgh.

Although valued with a net worth of £60million in the 2004 Sunday Times Rich List, as Sea Containers hit financial troubles, he resigned from each of his companies in 2006.

In March 2006 the company sold its share of Orient-Express Hotels.