Giuseppe Bottiglieri Shipping Company Spa"

Giuseppe Bottiglieri Shipping Company SpA is an independent private shipowning Company owned by Giuseppe Bottiglieri's family and founded more than 150 years ago by Captain Giovanni Bottiglieri, great grandfather of Giuseppe, who nowadays leads the company matching tradition and innovation.

In this task he is sided by his wife and his daughters Mariella, Alessandra and Manuela, who represent the sixth generation of the family in the business.

The Bottiglieri family’s history has been cyclically affected by historical and political events, often tragic like the two World conflicts of the XX century, but always faced with great entrepreneurial bravery.

The Company’s shipping activities started in 1850 in Torre del Greco, Naples, with a small fleet of coral fishing boats.

The first vessel registered in the Port Authority Register of Torre del Greco with Off. No. 1 is the schooner “Correale Secondo”, launched on 29th March 1877, 65,15 dwt, owned by Giovanni Bottiglieri. Thereafter the Family builds three oceangoing sailing ships “Lucia”, “Sant' Andrea” and “Giovanni Bottiglieri” (dating back to 1900), later on followed by the steam ships “Totonno”, “Peppino Bottiglieri”, “Luciano” and “Lucia Bottiglieri”.

in the first half of the XX century Bottiglieri’s fleet is hardly tested: during World War I (1915-1918) seven vessels are destroyed, but in 1920, with renewed energies, Michele Bottiglieri (1883-1951), rebuilds the fleet buying new steam ships and naming them “Totonno”, “Peppino Bottiglieri”, “Luciano Bottiglieri” and “Orsolina Bottiglieri”.

During World War II (1940-1945) further eight vessels sank.

In the 40’s, Ford’s mass production model was applied to naval engineering, generating the so called “Liberty” vessels, 14.000 tonnes dwt innovative ships, able to sail at eleven knots and with such a great autonomy (11.400 nautical miles at 10 knots) that enable them to sail the Atlantic or the Pacific without stopping for bunkering.

At the beginnings of the 1970's the Company invests in bigger size vessels, moving from the smaller general cargo single-deckers into the 15.000 dwt tween-deckers and then into 26.000 dwt handysize vessels.

It is in this period that Giuseppe Bottiglieri starts his career in the shipping industry: in 1961, aged 13, he first embarks on Liberty vessels and then in 1968, aged 20, he enters his father’s company, which at that time was named “Giovanni Bottiglieri Armatore srl”.

Here he is in charge first of the technical and administration departments, then of the crewing and thereafter of the chartering.

Thanks to his father’s teachings, Giuseppe can learn the craft of the shipping business, thus getting a strong professional father-son combination which lasts almost 36 years and gets them to share strategic decisions and choices, such as the transfer of the Company in Greece.

In 1976 Giovanni Battista Bottiglieri and Giuseppe Bottiglieri, with his twenty-year-old brother Michele, move the Company to Athens because the Greek market offers much more attracting favourable conditions. In Greece they manage eight Panamax vessels for the transport of soya-beans and other agricultural products from South America to Europe.

The family Company is renamed “Intermar Ship Management” and in 1978 Giuseppe is appointed Managing Director.

During the period spent in Greece, the most important shipping country in the world, where shipowners manage more than 156 million tons (20% of the world fleet), Giuseppe and his brother Michele can face and defy the international market at the highest competitive levels as well as make the acquaintance and meet some of the most important Greek Shipping families such as the Procopiou, the Livanos, the Tzakos, the Ioannidis, the Tomasos, the Angelicoussis and the Likiardopoulos.

This experience is much more relevant when Giovanni Bottiglieri and his two sons decide to renew the fleet taking advantage of the benefits granted by the Italian laws.

During their permanence in Greece, which lasted eighteen years, Giuseppe Bottiglieri decided to diversify the tonnage buying dry cargo Panamax vessels, such as the M/V “Merit”, 69.900 dwt tonnes, which was added to the pre-existing units, making the fleet composed by eight ships ranging from 25.000 to 69.000 dwt tonnes.

In 1993 Giuseppe and Michele, together with their father Giovanni Battista, decide to go back to Italy and establish the “Bottiglieri di Navigazione” Company in Torre del Greco, near Naples, with their two sisters living there.

They sell all the old ships and order a series of 75.500 tons Panamax ships: two are ordered at Burmeister and Wein yard in Copenhagen in 1993, two are placed at Fincantieri yard in Castellammare di Stabia in 1997 and two are commissioned to Hitachi Zosen yard in Japan in 1999.

In 1997 Giuseppe Bottiglieri realizes that it is the right moment to diversify the investments also in the operating department by time-chartering-in the first Panamax ship “Achilles” and by getting a long term “COA” contract to carry coal from South Africa with the German Company Salzgitter.

By these two far-sighted ideas of Giuseppe’s, the Company starts new commercial forms and gets remarkable growth targets. In 2000, after the difficult case of Erika, Giuseppe decides to diversify the shipping investments in the tanker market too. He is appointed President of the “Bottiglieri Tankers” S.p.A. Company which orders at Hyundai Mipo Dockyard in South Korea four product chemical tankers of the latest generation, double hull, 40.000 dwt, class Imo II, which are delivered in 2002.

On the 2nd December 2003 Giovanni Battista Bottiglieri passed away, aged 88. "In his holographic will – Giuseppe Bottiglieri remembers – my father left me his moral and patrimonial inheritance of a continuous cooperation, which has lasted more 30 years, and he recognized me the leadership of the Company".

Therefore, in February 2005, a business reorganization takes place and the entire tanker fleet is taken over by Giuseppe Bottiglieri, who becomes their only and sole owner through his companies Giuseppe Bottiglieri di Navigazione spa and Giuseppe Bottiglieri Shipping Company spa.

The eldest daughter, Mariella, Managing Director and Chartering Manager, has been Board Member in the Executive Committee of the Young Shipowners in Confitarma since 2005.

In June 2006 she was given a prestigious international commitment as she was elected Director of the UK Defence Club, the international association of legal advice and defence of the shipowners, based in London.

Alessandra, the second daughter, managing director as well, is in charge of the operating department.

Manuela, the youngest one, after completing her law studies at the university Luiss Guido Carli in Rome, is now in charge of the legal department of the company and she's also a Board Member.

The year 2007 is rich in novelty for the Giuseppe Bottiglieri Shipping Company S.p.A., a company which is now at the highest levels of the Italian shipping Industry. On the wake of a long family tradition, the Company prefers to stand only and exclusively in the maritime transportation ordering more and more competitive ships.

Giuseppe Bottiglieri orders at the Chinese Yard Jiangsu Yangzijiang in Shanghai ten ships of the special class Post-Panamax 92.500 deadweight, which will be delivered between 2009 and 2011, with an investment worth 500 million USD.

It is the biggest investment of the recent Italian order of 22 Post-Panamax ships at the Chinese Yard Jangsu Yangzijiang and by this order Giuseppe Bottiglieri Shipping Company S.p.A. owns a fleet of more than 1 million of tons of deadweight.

In the same year, the Company leaves Torre del Greco and moves to Naples, in the historical bulding in 8 Bovio Square, just where Giuseppe started his career in 1968, in the office of his father Giovanni Battista Bottiglieri.

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