On December 8, 1992 open joint-stock company “Sea Port of Saint-Petersburg” (JSC “SP SPb” was founded on the base of Leningrad Sea Commercial Port.
As a result of the privatization of the existing port companies the port changed its form of ownership from state to private and its employees became the main shareholders. They gained the right to manage the newly created JSC and take main decisions on their own. Later the majority of the shares was sold to the private investors.
The administration of JSC “Sea Port of Saint-Petersburg” faced many challenges: with transition to the market economy the Ministry of Sea Fleet and the government stopped paying attention to the issues related to the technical equipment of the port – and the company had to renew the equipment on its own and provide the port with the first-class machinery. Having no state planning anymore, the port had to seek its own cargo flows for handling. So port changed the structure of its turnover, new cargoes appeared, i.e. mineral fertilizers.
In the 90-ies the competitive struggle for export and import cargo traffic became especially acute. This determined the fact that the modernization of operational process flows and replenishment of the fleet of the lift trucks became the top-priority task.
In February of 2008 the shares of JSC “Sea Port of Saint-Petersburg” and three stevedoring companies CJSC “First Stevedoring Company” (CJSC “FSC”), CJSC “Second Stevedoring Company” (CJSC “SSC”), CJSC “Third Stevedoring Company” (CJSC “TSC”) were purchased by the International transportation group Universal Cargo Logistics Holding B.V. (UCL Holding) from its former shareholders - Jysk Stalindustry ApS and Chupit Limited.
Including of “SPSPb” in transportation holding UCL Holding allowed the company to preserve the same progress rate of construction of new terminal facilities.
Development programme of port infrastructure of the “Sea Port of Saint-Petersburg” being implemented at the moment includes the construction of the specialized terminals, reconstruction of the current facilities and the development of port infrastructure and the territories adjacent to the port.
In order to make the management of the companies included in the group UCL Holding more efficient, on July 1, 2009 powers of sole executive body of the group “Sea Port of Saint-Petersburg” were transferred to LLC “Transport Assets Management” (T.A. Management) for three years.
Day by day and year by year JSC “Sea Port of Saint-Petersburg” preserves and strengthens its stability and reliability. The main reason of prosperity of the enterprise is highly qualified personnel.
In 2010 the group of companies started the process of reorganization of four joint-stock companies by joining of CJSC “First Stevedoring Company” (CJSC “FSC”), CJSC “Second Stevedoring Company” (CJSC “SSC”), CJSC “Third Stevedoring Company” (CJSC “TSC”) to JSC “Sea Port of Saint-Petersburg” in order to increase the efficiency of use of business assets and competitive ability of the handling services in the Greater Port of Saint-Petersburg.
Third and Second Stevedoring Companies ceased their business activity and joined to JSC “Sea Port of Saint-Petersburg” on March 24 and May 12, 2011 respectively. On August 23, 2011 First Stevedoring Company joined as well and the process of reorganization was completed.
JSC “Sea Port of Saint-Petersburg” became universal assignee with regard to all the rights and obligations of the liquidated companies. All the personnel was hired on the same terms and conditions by JSC “SPSP”. All the obligations under clients’ contracts of CJSC “FSC”, CJSC “SSC” and CJSC “TSC” were also transferred to JSC “SPSPb”.
In October of 2011 the stock of shares of JSC "Sea Port of Saint-Petersburg" was transferred to subsidiary subholding company UCL Port B.V., consolidating stevedoring assets of the whole group UCL Holding.
