Foundation — 1904-1912
A.P. Moller - Maersk was established on 16 April 1904, in the midst of the second industrial revolution, in a little town called Svendborg on the Danish island of Funen.
A.P. Møller, the driver of the Steamship Company Svendborg, had started out in tramp shipping, where vessels operate on the spot market without fixed schedules or port calls. Keen to expand the fleet beyond its modest three vessels, A.P. Møller was met with resistance from some of the company’s board members, so he struck out on his own.
Founding the Steamship Company of 1912, he secured himself operational independence and paved the way for the rapid expansion of the company over the coming years.
Consolidation — 1913-1940
The golden circumstances of trade and shipping which emerged during the First World War helped to establish A.P. Moller - Maersk as a leading shipping company in Denmark. Although A.P. Møller himself felt uneasy about the unnatural profits and speculation – a sentiment he expressed in a letter he wrote to his father at the time – Maersk’s shipping activities benefited greatly.
In these lucrative conditions, the business quickly expanded to include brokerage (1913), shipbuilding (1918), liner shipping and tanker trade (1928), and a sugar plantation (1930), as well as investments in a range of other industrial activities.
n 1918, A.P. Møller established the Odense Steel Shipyard, which for almost a century designed and built many innovative vessels for the industry. From the mid 1990s and onwards the shipyard built some of the biggest container ships in the world for A.P. Moller – Maersk.