Neptune Orient Lines Global transportation company. The Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) Group started as Singapore’s national shipping line in December 1968. It operated out of a small office in the Fullerton Building with a fledging fleet of just five vessels.

By the 1970s, an era marked by the move to containerized cargo, NOL’s fleet had grown to 20. It started earning its first profits in 1972 under managing director Goh Chok Tong. NOL was the first company to offer a containerized service from Asia to Australia in 1975. The company entered the Asia- Europe trade in 1976 as part of the ACE liner consortium with partners Orient Overseas Container Line and K Line. In 1978, it launched its trans- Pacific service. Intra- Asia feeder routes were added in the 1980s.

NOL became the first wholly owned government company to be publicly listed on the Singapore stock exchange in 1981. It moved into its current global headquarters, the NOL Building, in 1983. It diversified into the lightering business with oil and petroleum product tankers in the early 1990s.

In November 1997, it acquired America’s oldest shipping company, American President Lines (APL), for US$825 million. This gave it the critical mass needed to expand and compete globally— APL was nearly twice the size of NOL and had a 149- year history. The deal, the largest in Singapore history then, created one of the world’s top five global liner groups with revenues exceeding US$4 billion. The acquisition also brought with it key terminal hubs in Asia and North America, along with a valuable inter- modal transport network in the United States that included ocean, rail and terminal operations.

The capability of the company’s supply chain management became an area of increasing focus, and APL Logistics was established as a separate business unit in 2001. In 2003, the product tankering business was divested, allowing NOL to concentrate on core liner and logistics services.

The group has emerged as one of the world’s largest container shipping conglomerates, employing about 11,000 staff globally. Its core divisions, APL and APL Logistics, are leaders in the global container transportation industry.

The group posted a net profit of $1.3 billion on a turnover of $12 billion in financial year 2005. As of 2005, NOL operated a fleet of more than 100 vessels with services to more than 140 countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America.

NOL stock is a component of the Straits Times Index. The Singapore government investment arm, Temasek Holdings, holds the largest share of the company at 69 per cent.