The year 2009 marks a major milestone for Swift Group which is 18 years since inception. Founded in Cairo in 1991 by Amr Yakan, Khaled Morsy and Mohamed El Wakil, Swift Group pioneered the concept of quality freight forwarding services. Six years later, a fourth partner, Urs Moll, joined forces with the founders.
By having a 18th-years anniversary, Swift Group has successfully stood the test of time and will always be around to back its customers with the experience and know-how to get the job done right. To celebrate our anniversary, we are looking out to the next one. Although we celebrate our successes every year and are continually looking for ways to drive our innovation forward, this year is the perfect opportunity to look back over the past 18th years and celebrate how far we have come. Since the company’s establishment, we led the way for many trends in the logistics industry in Egypt. At the very early years, our company was amongst the first to focus on vertical industries and we were recognized as a quality service forwarder in the high tech market.
A key value that we have always embraced since our inception is our dedication in marketing and promoting the brand of our principles in Egypt. We work with an entrepreneurial spirit to prosper the investment of our foreign principles and FDIs in total. This value yielded our success stories in building brands to last such as UTi (Egypt) Ltd, Inchcape Shipping Services Ltd (ISS) and Ecu-Line (Egypt) Ltd. UTi (Egypt) Ltd started as routing operations office in 1996 and remained a joint-venture effective from 1998 till its full acquisition by the principal in 2003. As for ISS, it started as a representative office in 1994 that provides some ship services. Four years later, Swift management took the lead in establishing a partnership with ISS after an amendment in the Egyptian maritime law that allowed foreign liners to operate in Egypt. In 1998, Inchcape Shipping Services (Egypt) Ltd was founded and appointed as agents of Sea-Land Services. Few years later, ISS was appointed as agents of Sermar Line (SRL), the Ethiopian Shipping Lines (ESL) and Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd (MOL) servicing. Full acquisition of ISS by our foreign principals took place at the end of 2005. As for Ecu-Line, Swift Group established ECU Line Egypt Ltd in 1998, as a joint venture with ECU Hold N.V., Belgium. ECU Line in Antwerp, Belgium is the world's largest Non Vessel Operated Common Carrier (NVOCC), operating over 120 offices in 60 different countries.In March 2009, Swift Group sold its shares in ECU Line (Egypt) Ltd to signify the third success story for Swift Group in building brands to last. Beyond UTi (Egypt) Ltd, ISS business models and Ecu-Line (Egypt) Ltd, Swift Group shared in the building of other brands and businesses such as PIL (Egypt) Ltd and the latest exclusive agency for ocean and air freight shipments of the second largest forwarder worldwide Schenker that has been awarded to our subsidiary International Transport Services (ITS). Like most longstanding companies, Swift Group’s history is marked by a number of acquisitions, mergers and diversifications.
To be a leader in the logistics industry, it requires a marriage of opposites: consistent yet adaptable, imaginative yet practical, omnipresent yet localized, and diverse yet specialized. Hence, Swift Group continues to be a value chain integrator and provides outsourcing services that allows its clients to focus on their core businesses. Such integrated initiatives are emphasized by the provisions of services such as sourcing, warehousing, trucking and other value-added services through Swift Group’s business units such as Swift Trading (Egypt) Ltd, Misr Sara, Swift Egypt, and Middle East Trucking Networks.
Our success is brought together by the great energy, grand visions and strong passion of Swift Group people. These people took great pride in being part of this success. We dare to dream of further accomplishments in the logistics industry not only in Egypt but the far reaches of the Middle East.
During the past 18 years, Swift Group has grown into a regional company with more than 300 employees, and it maintains an award-winning culture that holds dedication and a challenging work environment as keys to success. In the company’s early days, all employees could fit into one room to hear directly from the founders. This philosophy remains woven into the company’s culture of maintaining open communication and sharing in the team’s success. We are proud of the corporate culture that all our employees work together daily to perpetuate – an environment where hard work is rewarded but creativity and teamwork are encouraged just as strongly.
We never give up. Our persistence and determination are what got us where we are today.