Displaying items by tag: First Dividend Ever SFPC

15th December 2015

First Dividend Paid by SFPC Amid Record Profits

#FirstDividend - Enjoying its biggest ever profits last year, Shannon Foynes Port Company (SFPC) has revealed from their 2014 annual report.

SFPC, which operates six ports on the Shannon Estuary and handles international trade valued at over €6bn, saw profits increase to €2.864m from €2.825m in 2013.

The company’s general cargo terminals recorded year-on-year increases of 5 per cent and capitalised on the recovering economy through a GDP growth of over 4 per cent for 2014.

The growth now means the company is in a position to provide a dividend from the 2014 results. For more on the story, The Sunday Business Post reports here.

Published in Shannon Estuary

Tagged under

About Conor O'Brien, Irish Circumnavigator

In 1923-25, Conor O'Brien became the first amateur skipper to circle the world south of the Great Capes. O'Brien's boat Saoirse was reputedly the first small boat (42-foot, 13 metres long) to sail around the world since Joshua Slocum completed his voyage in the 'Spray' during 1895 to 1898. It is a journey that O' Brien documented in his book Across Three Oceans. O'Brien's voyage began and ended at the Port of Foynes, County Limerick, Ireland, where he lived.

Saoirse, under O'Brien's command and with three crew, was the first yacht to circumnavigate the world by way of the three great capes: Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope and Cape Leeuwin; and was the first boat flying the Irish tri-colour to enter many of the world's ports and harbours. He ran down his easting in the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties between the years 1923 to 1925.

Up until O'Brien's circumnavigation, this route was the preserve of square-rigged grain ships taking part in the grain race from Australia to England via Cape Horn (also known as the clipper route).

At a Glance - Conor O'Brien's Circumnavigation

In June 1923, Limerick man Conor O’Brien set off on his yacht, the Saoirse — named after the then newly created Irish Free State — on the two-year voyage from Dun Laoghaire Harbour that was to make him the first Irish amateur to sail around the world.

June 1923 - Saoirse’s arrival in Madeira after her maiden passage out from Dublin Bay

2nd December 1924 - Saoirse crossed the longitude of Cape Horn

June 20th 1925 - O’Brien’s return to Dun Laoghaire Harbour