FINSEA GROUP
For more than forty years we have been in the logistics and port services business – on the quays in Genoa so much talks about us.
We are people before being a Company. Our heart is in Genoa and our business is to move goods from one side of the world to the other.
We set out as shipping agents and along the way we also became transporters, intermodal logistics operators, shippers, and customs agents.
HISTORY
In a past life we were terminal operators. Today we have chosen to invest is shipyards and passenger transport.
Since then our sector has undergone significant changes: the mergers we have seen in recent years in the container world have involved us very closely, and two of our most important ship owners have set out on new ventures.
Having always been involved in the area in which we find ourselves, we get involved in resolving problems in our sector and contribute to drawing up local and national policies by active participation in trade associations and federations: Assagenti, Federagenti, Spediporto, Fedespedi, Anita, Confitarma, Alis, Confetra, Conftrasporto, Confindustria, and Assiterminal.
In the port of Genoa, as Finsea, we were one of the major players: our chairman, Luigi Negri, holds the historical memory of our port and the many stories played out on our quays.
“At the end of the 1980s we represented Yang Ming Line in Italy and I looked at the port apprehensively – constantly gridlocked by the “war” between consortia and port workers. Roberto D’Alessandro, who was the Port President, came to Taipei with me, to reassure my ship owner and the rest was history”.
In the early 1990s the reform of the Italian ports was launched, the famous Law 84/94, and the President, Rinaldo Magnani, drove privatisation of the quays: it was a new challenge for Finsea: “I was desperate: the port had not worked for four months, hostage to the port workers, to be able to serve my ship owner we embarked in Antwerp and brought everything to Genoa by train. Finally I went to Magnani and asked for the terminal, nobody could believe it. I remember that when I came out of the autonomous port consortium that evening, I could only put my head in my hands and ask myself: what am I going to do now?”
Sech was the first private terminal in the Italian ports, a great entrepreneurial adventure, carried forward courageously with partners Cerruti, Magillo and Schenone.
“There was always a lively dialogue with the Ports Consul, Paride Batini, but he was a man of bygone times: I never had to sign any contract with him, his word was enough and the agreements were respected at any cost”. Along with the terminal, the experience within local and national trade associations also began for Finsea, first that of shipping agents, and then that of terminal operators in Confindustria:
“We fought many battles on many fronts, Every evening I went to the Port Authority to discuss every terminal operator’s problems with the President, Giuliano Gallanti, and Secretary, Sandro Carena. We always found a solution to everything, like when the government cut our funds for dredging and within half a day we resolved the problem, thanks in part to the support of shipping agents who, at the time, were headed by Piero Lazzeri”.
It is thanks to the enormous amount of experience that we are now one of the most authoritative companies in the country, recognised by institutions at all levels and by the sector stakeholders. We maintain a countryside dimension and constantly make our know-how available to contribute to resolving problems in our port and to defining local and national policies, via our trade associations.
Over the years our Group has grown and diversified: after 24 years we left the terminal operator business, with the sole exception of our stake in the CILP terminal in Livorno, and we have invested in the ship building sector. This along with the Garrè and Bisagno families, custodians of two jewels of the Mediterranean when it comes to repairs, refitting, and new builds: the San Giorgio del Porto and T. Mariotti shipyards. With Finsea was born Genova Industrie Navali, which today also includes the poles of Piombino and Marseilles In 2020 the Group completed acquisition of SILT, a long-standing road transport company, and extended its involvement towards logistics, completing the services already offered by Logtainer, the first intermodal operator in the North-West, and MTO, the Group’s logistics office.