The backdrop to our story, and the first point of reference, is Svendborg, one of the main shipping towns in Denmark, at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries.

Many Maersk people are familiar with the phrase ‘It all began in 1904’, which used to precede the presentation of the company’s activities in glossy brochures produced in the 1980s and 1990s. Even though the A.P. Moller Group was a much smaller company at the time, within the small country of Denmark it was a large corporation. The ‘all’ signified the many activities of the group, contrasted with its context within Denmark and within a world of business that was not yet global in the way we understand it today.

However, even in 1904, the perspective of the key players in the company and Maersk’s business activities was international. Maersk’s people had gained international experience from the relevant markets at the time and used that experience to establish and gradually expand the business.