Death of tycoon who owned Sealink
James Sherwood
TYCOON James Sherwood a frequent visitor to Stranraer when he owned the Sealink ferry company has died aged 86.
The US entrepreneur was the face of the firm Sea Containers, which acquired Sealink for £50 million in 1984 as British Rail was privatised.
A damaging strike followed not long afterwards and Sherwood attempted to sequestrate the assets of the National Union of Seaman in a bid force an end to the dispute. He was also quoted as saying: "We've got to stop running railways along Communist lines."
In 1965, Kentucky-born Sherwood founded Sea Containers and over the next 40, years expanded the firm from a supplier of leased cargo containers into various shipping companies, as well as expanding into luxury hotels and trains, including the Orient Express.
Said to have a fortune of £60million in 2004, Sea Containers hit stormy waters and he resigned as CEO from each of his companies in 2006, though he continued as a director of Orient Express Hotels Ltd until 2011.
The Orient-Express group was based on the famous London-Venice train service and included more than 40 top-flight hotels such as the Cipriani in Venice, the Splendido in Portofino and the Mount Nelson in Cape Town.
The company was renamed Belmond in 2014 after Sherwood's retirement and was acquired last year by French luxury goods company LVMH for $3.2 billion.
Mr Sherwood died of complications after abdominal surgery.
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Published: 12 Jun 2020, 13:01