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Company type | Private limited company |
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Industry | Diversified |
Founded | 1851 |
Headquarters | |
Area served | Falkland Islands |
Key people |
|
Revenue | £17,183,000 (2019) [1] |
£626,000 (2019) [1] | |
£391,000 (2019) [1] | |
Total assets | £22,354,000 (2019) |
Total equity | £1,582,000 (2019) |
Number of employees | 208 (2019) |
Parent | FIH group plc |
Website | www |
The Falkland Islands Company Ltd is a diversified goods and services company owned by FIH Group. Known locally as FIC, it was founded in 1851 and was granted a royal charter to trade in 1852 by Queen Victoria. It was originally founded by Samuel Fisher Lafone to exploit wild cattle in East Falkland, but they gave way to sheep farming and then to a range of trading activities in the Falkland Islands ranging from retail shops and cafés to insurance and vehicle hire.
Livestock were introduced to the Falklands by early settlers and the resulting feral populations were exploited on a small scale by those that followed them. Initially the emphasis was on cattle, in fact the islands' flag showed a bullock until the 1930s. [2] In March 1846 a contract was awarded to Samuel Fisher Lafone, a Liverpudlian operating a hides and tallow business in Montevideo, Uruguay. [3] Under the contract Lafone was to rent what was to become known as Lafonia, the part of East Falkland south of the isthmus that connects the two halves of the island. The first British Governor, Richard Clement Moody had estimated Lafonia to be 200 square leagues (1,384 square miles, 358,000 ha), but it turned out to be half that size and the cattle, previously estimated at 100,000 head were probably never more than 30,000. [3] In 1846 he sent gauchos who settled at Hope Place just south of the isthmus, and by 1849 they had built a peat wall, the "Boca" wall across the isthmus to contain the livestock. [3]
But as well as there being far fewer cattle than expected, many proved to be of poor quality and Lafone's business was not a success. By 1849 he and his brother Alexander Ross Lafone were negotiating with their creditors to launch a joint stock company named "The Royal Falkland Land, Cattle,Seal and Fishery Company". [3] A new contract was signed on 9 January 1850 under which the Lafones would buy the land south of the isthmus and have exclusive rights to "all wild horses, horned cattle, sheep, goats and swine upon the Falkland Islands" and exclusive rights to supply beef to government and visiting ships until 1 January 1856. [3] The Lafones would pay £30,000 for this, made up of £10,000 they had paid in 1846, £10,000 immediately and five annual payments of £2,000 from 1852. [3] The company was formed in January 1851 and the Charter of Incorporation was signed 23 December 1851. [4] On receiving its Royal Charter on 10 January 1852, the company was renamed to The Falkland Islands Company Limited [3] and the Lafones owned 32.1% of it, split equally between the two brothers. [5]
They appointed their brother-in-law John Pownall Dale as manager in the islands, and on 19 June 1852 the Record set sail from Liverpool with 45 settlers, 46 Cheviot sheep and a Galloway bull. [3] However the island as a whole lost about a third of its cattle in the severe winter of 1852 (although sheep continued to increase) and the company sold just 20% of the hides expected in the business plan. [3] Dale was dismissed in 1853 to be replaced by Thomas Havers, and Samuel Lafone was removed from the board. Dale strongly promoted sheep as being more profitable than cattle but lasted just 5 years before being replaced by James Lane. [3] The company moved its headquarters from Hope Place to Darwin in 1857 by which time most of the wild cattle on East Falkland had been killed, and they would finally be wiped out in Lafonia in 1883. [3] The Lafone contract for supplying beef to Stanley had expired in 1860 and Lane wanted to improve the profitability of the cattle by salting their meat so he built an abattoir and salting house at Hope Place. [3] In August 1867 Lane was succeeded by Frederick Cobb. In 1880 he proposed the elimination of the company's tame cattle herd on economic grounds, and he got his wish after the tallow factory at Goose Green exploded in 1885. [3] Henceforth the company's farming would depend on sheep and not cattle.
By this time the company was smaller than the rival firm of Dean & Sons based in West Falkland [3] but in 1888 it used shares to buy the trading business (but not the farms) of Deans, [3] which acted as agent for farmers, and operated the West Store in the capital Stanley. The company was also a Lloyd's Agent and owned a hotel and other property assets in the islands.
The year 1913 brought a regular shipping service to Montevideo. In the 1930s the company was regularly transporting wool to Montevideo using the ships Fitzroy and Lafonia. [6] [7] By 1945 the Falkland island company acquired farm property in the Falklands, amounting to total agricultural land holdings reaching 1.2m acres and 300,000 sheep. In 1962 FIC shares listed on the London Stock Exchange. making it a public company. In 1971 The company's last regular ship – the Darwin, stopped travelling between the Falklands and Montevideo. [6]
In 1972, FIC was acquired by The Dundee Perth and London Shipping Company Limited which was then purchased by Coalite Group plc.
In 1989, FIC's owners Coalite were acquired by Anglo United plc in a leveraged buyout.
In 1991, FIC's agricultural land holdings, four farms consisting of 25% of the land of the Falkland Islands, were sold to the Falkland Islands Government following the Shackleton report. [8]
in 1997, Anglo United, which had an unsustainable amount of debt, underwent a capital reconstruction and distributed shares in Falkland Islands Holdings plc to its shareholders. For every 300 Anglo United shares, shareholders received,one share in Falkland Islands Holdings. At this point the Falkland Islands Company became a full subsidiary of Falkland Islands Holdings, and its name changed to FIH Group in September 2016.
Retail & Distribution
Automotive
Property
Insurance
Building and Electrical
Penguin Travel
Haulage & Groundworks
Fishing Agency: Acting as agent for over 100 fishing vessels and for cruise ships belonging to Holland America, Seabourn, Celebrity and Princess Lines, supported by its own fleet of launches and a work boat.
Flights: Agent for the MoD Airbridge service for AirTanker flights between RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and RAF Mount Pleasant.
Falklands Removal Services: Agent for both Whites and Crown Removals with worldwide connections available.
Falklands Shipping: Shipping commercial and private containers between the UK and the Falklands on the MoD FIRS vessels southwards and wool shipments northwards.
Security: Contracted by the Falkland Islands Government (FIG) for the provision of security services at Mount Pleasant Complex for the second commercial flight from South America.
The history of the Falkland Islands goes back at least five hundred years, with active exploration and colonisation only taking place in the 18th century. Nonetheless, the Falkland Islands have been a matter of controversy, as they have been claimed by the French, British, Spaniards and Argentines at various points.
The Falkland Islands are located in the South Atlantic Ocean between 51°S and 53°S on a projection of the Patagonian Shelf, part of the South American continental shelf. In ancient geological time this shelf was part of Gondwana, and around 400 million years ago split from what is now Africa and drifted westwards from it. Today the islands are subjected to the Roaring Forties, winds that shape both their geography and climate.
Santa Cruz Island is located off the southwestern coast of Ventura, California, United States. It is the largest island in California and largest of the eight islands in the Channel Islands archipelago and Channel Islands National Park. Forming part of the northern group of the Channel Islands, Santa Cruz is 22 miles (35 km) long and 2 to 6 miles wide with an area of 61,764.6 acres (249.952 km2).
East Falkland is the largest island of the Falklands in the South Atlantic, having an area of 6,605 km2 or 54% of the total area of the Falklands. The island consists of two main land masses, of which the more southerly is known as Lafonia; it is joined by a narrow isthmus where the settlement of Goose Green is located, and it was the scene of the Battle of Goose Green during the Falklands War.
Bleaker Island is one of the Falkland Islands, lying off south east Lafonia. The name is a corruption of "Breaker Island" due to the waves that break on it. It was also known as "Long Island" at one point.
Momart is a British company specialising in the storage, transportation, and installation of works of art. A major proportion of their business is maintaining often delicate artworks in a secure, climate-controlled environment. The company maintains specialist warehouse facilities adapted for this task. Momart's clients include the Royal Academy of Arts, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Gallery, Tate Modern, Tate Britain and Buckingham Palace. The company received considerable media attention in 2004 when a fire spread to one of their warehouses from an adjacent unit, destroying the works in it, including works by Young British Artists such as Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst, including Emin's 1995 piece Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995. On 5 March 2008 Momart was taken over by Falkland Islands Holdings for £10.3 million, of which £4.6 million was in cash, £2.5 million was in shares and £3.2 million was deferred consideration.
Pebble Island is one of the Falkland Islands, situated north of West Falkland. It is possibly named after the peculiarly spherical pebbles found at its western tip.
Lafonia is a peninsula forming the southern part of East Falkland, the largest of the Falkland Islands.
Darwin is a settlement in Lafonia on East Falkland, Falkland Islands, lying on Choiseul Sound, on the east side of the island's central isthmus, 2.5 miles (4.0 km) north of Goose Green. It was known occasionally as Port Darwin.
Goose Green is a settlement in Lafonia on East Falkland in the Falkland Islands. It lies on Choiseul Sound, on the east side of the island's central isthmus, 2 miles (3.2 km) south-southwest of Darwin. With a population of about 40, it is the third-largest settlement of the Falkland Islands, after Stanley and Mount Pleasant.
William Barnard Rhodes, casually referred to as Barney Rhodes, was a New Zealand landowner, pastoralist, businessman and politician. He was probably born in Lincolnshire, England, but took up a career at sea at an early age. In 1839 he settled in Wellington New Zealand and remained there for the rest of his life. He brought three of his younger brothers to New Zealand and they co-ordinated their efforts.
FIH Group plc or FIH is a British conglomerate which operates in the Falkland Islands through the Falkland Islands Company. Its other main businesses are the Portsmouth Harbour Ferry Company, which operates the Gosport Ferry in the south of England, and a London-based art storage and transport company called Momart.
Luis Vernet was a merchant from Hamburg of Huguenot descent. Vernet established a settlement on East Falkland in 1828, after first seeking approval from both the British and Argentine authorities. As such, Vernet is a controversial figure in the history of the Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute.
The Falkland Islands is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about 300 mi (480 km) east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about 752 mi (1,210 km) from Cape Dubouzet at the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, at a latitude of about 52°S. The archipelago, with an area of 4,700 sq mi (12,000 km2), comprises East Falkland, West Falkland, and 776 smaller islands. As a British overseas territory, the Falklands have internal self-governance, but the United Kingdom takes responsibility for their defence and foreign affairs. The capital and largest settlement is Stanley on East Falkland.
The Gosport Ferry is a ferry service for pedestrians and cyclists operating between Gosport and Portsmouth in Hampshire, southern England. It is currently operated by Gosport Ferry Ltd, a subsidiary of the Portsmouth Harbour Ferry Company Ltd, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of FIH group plc.
The Falkland Islands have a complex history stretching over five hundred years. Active exploration and colonisation began in the 18th century but a self-supporting colony was not established till the latter part of the 19th century. Nonetheless, the islands have been a matter of controversy, as due to their strategic position in the 18th century their sovereignty was claimed by the French, Spaniards, British and Argentines at various points.
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Alfred Lafone of Hanworth Park, Feltham, Middlesex, was a British leather merchant and Conservative Party politician in London. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bermondsey from 1886 to 1892, and from 1895 to 1900.
Thomas Havers was a British businessman and architect, active in the Falkland Islands and Uruguay in the middle of the 19th century. He is noted for designing the Mercado Central de Montevideo. He was the father of writer and novelist Dorothy Boulger and painter and illustrator Alice Havers.