Company History

The Adelaide Steamship Company Limited was incorporated in South Australia in 1875. Its purpose was to provide steamship services from Adelaide to Melbourne, and subsequently further afield.

For the first 100 years of its life, the main activities of the company were conventional shipping operations on the Australian coast, primary products, consumer cargoes and extensive passenger services. These circled the coast from northern Western Australia to northern Queensland. Shipping operations were supported by a large network of agency offices in almost every Australian port of any significance.

The Adelaide Steamship Company together with the Australasian Steam Navigation Co, Huddart Parker, Howard Smith and McIlwraith McEarcharn were regarded as significant pioneers of coastal shipping in Australia.

Although the company saw a number of notable milestones, its activities were confined to the Australian coast. As a result, little was known in the international shipping community. Among these milestones however, two stand out.

In the 1930s, the company joined with other shipping companies to merge their fledgling airline subsidiaries. The shipping companies included Holyman, P&O and Union, forming Australian National Airlines (ANA). This later merged with Reg Ansett's operation to become Ansett ANA, which was eventually renamed Ansett Airlines.

Perhaps even more significant was the design and development, with McIlwraiths, of the world's first purpose built container ships. Kooringa entered the Melbourne-Fremantle trade in 1964. She served as something of a model for Overseas Container Line and Associated Container Transportation, with both companies sending teams to examine the new concept.

A relatively minor sideline, started in the 1890s, was the company's tug operations. Gradually, tug operations extended over a number of ports, but until the middle of the 20th century they remained the poor relation of the much more significant coastal shipping operations.

With the decline of coastal shipping however, towage assumed more importance. By the 1960s, towage and associated operations represented a very significant part of the company's activities.

This continued, even during the 1970s and 1980s when The Adelaide Steamship Company became the foundation for one the country's major conglomerate organisations. At one stage, the company was Australia's fourth highest capitalised company. With the stock market crash and its aftermath, the company went into free fall, halted only by the systematic disposal of assets.

As this activity was happening, towage began to reassert itself as an important element of the company. Strengthened by a series of industry rationalisations - Brambles' Port Kembla, Sydney and Newcastle operations and P&O's towage operations in Western Australia, the towage division became a valuable candidate for asset disposal in 1997.

The towage operation was floated from the old company under the name Adsteam Marine Limited. Since becoming a publicly listed company in its own right, Adsteam Marine has established a strong investor following.

In addition to towage, the company has developed shipping agency and tug barging activities.

Adsteam Marine Limited doubled its size in May 2001 when it acquired the towage interests of Howard Smith, its partner in many towage ventures.