Early origins

The early development of ISS mirrors the early development of the Inchcape Group. The Group can trace its origins back to the 1840s when two of the founding partners, Messrs. McKinnon & Mackenzie established the first ships agency activity in India quickly expanding into the Gulf and Africa. That was followed by the acquisition of over 100 leading agency names giving Inchcape its wide geographic coverage and dominant market position.

Gulf and Asia Development

Gray Mackenzie, operating in the Arabian Gulf, was established in 1862. Borneo Company, trading in South East Asia from the 1850s, was acquired in 1967 and Anglo Thai in 1975. Dodwell joined the Group in 1972 bringing over 120 years experience as market leader in Japan and China. During the 1990s, further acquisitions were made to further strengthen the Group's presence in South East Asia.

European and American Development

Expansion into Europe and the Americas took place during the 1980s and 1990s. In 1981, the South American trading operations of Lloyds Bank were acquired bringing representation in Ecuador and Peru. Further South American operations were established in 1984 in Panama and in 1995 in Argentina and Chile. In 1985 Gellatly's largely North European agency network was acquired, this gave a European base which was developed further in Greece in 1989, the UK and France in 1992, and Suez, Turkey and Scandinavia in 1993. With the acquisition of Southern Steamship in 1990, Inchcape extended into the North American shipping market. The Group subsequently consolidated its position on the West and East coasts with the acquisitions of Williams Dimond in 1991 and Lavino in 1992. In 1992, ISS was established to manage the Group's global shipping operations. The primary task of the ISS's management in 1992 was to transform what was then a loose federation of ship agents into an integrated international network with defined and common service standards world-wide.

Today

ISS is the world's largest independent Marine Management company. Through Net technology we have been able to transform both the speed and accuracy of the operational, financial and port information provided to our clients by our offices worldwide. In partnership with some of the world's leading operators we have built on the strength of our Inchcape inheritance to develop an innovative menu of integrated solutions designed to 'manage' rather than 'report' key information while at the same time broadening our scope from 'the port' to 'the voyage'.