The National Freight Corporation was a major British transport business between 1948 and 2000. It was listed on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

and at one time, as NFC plc, was a constituent of the

FTSE 100 Index The Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index, also called the FTSE 100 Index, FTSE 100, FTSE, or, informally, the "Footsie" , is a share index of the 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange with (in principle) the highest market ...

History

The company was established in 1948 as British Road Services (BRS). It was the road transport company formed by the

nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

of Britain's road haulage industry, under the

British Transport Commission The British Transport Commission (BTC) was created by Clement Attlee's post-war Labour government as a part of its nationalisation programme, to oversee railways, canals and road freight transport in Great Britain (Northern Ireland had the se ...

, as a result of the

Transport Act 1947 The Transport Act 1947 (10 & 11 Geo. 6 c. 49) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Under the terms of the Act, the railway network, long-distance road haulage and various other types of transport were nationalised and came under ...

. From 1963, the company was administered by the

Transport Holding Company The Transport Holding Company (THC) was a British Government-owned company created by the Transport Act 1962 to administer a range of state-owned transport, travel and engineering companies that were previously managed by the British Transport C ...

and had four main operating areas: British Road Services, BRS Parcels,

Pickfords Pickfords is a moving company based in the United Kingdom, part of Pickfords Move Management Ltd. The business is believed to have been founded in the 17th century, making it one of the UK's oldest functioning companies, although the similar ...

and Containerway & Roadferry. On 1 January 1969, it was renamed the National Freight Corporation. On the same date a 51% share in Freightliner was transferred from the

British Railways Board British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

(BRB). This was transferred back to the BRB on 1 August 1978. In 1980, the assets of the National Freight Corporation were transferred to the National Freight Company. In 1982, the company was sold to its employees as the National Freight Consortium in one of the first

privatisation Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

s of state-owned industry.NFC is over hurdle
''Commercial Motor'' 20 February 1982 page 4 The new company was first listed on the

in 1989 and subsequently became NFC plc. BRS Parcels was rebranded as Roadline and was sold in a

management buy-out A management buyout (MBO) is a form of acquisition in which a company's existing managers acquire a large part, or all, of the company, whether from a parent company or individual. Management-, and/or leveraged buyout became noted phenomena of 1 ...

Lynx Express Lynx Express (stylised as Lynx Express) was a courier (parcel delivery) company operating principally in the United Kingdom. It was acquired in July 2005 by UPS. History The company's history dates back to the nationalisation of the British R ...

in 1997. NFC disposed of Pickfords in 1999 to

Allied Van Lines Allied Van Lines is an American moving company founded in 1928 as a cooperative non-profit organization owned by its member agents on the east coast of the United States, to help with organizing return loads and minimizing dead-heading (i.e. op ...

.NFC and Ocean forge £3.2bn alliance to exploit e-commerce
''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' 22 February 2000 In 2000, the company merged with

Ocean Group plc Ocean Group plc was a major British transport business. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. History The company was founded by Alfred Holt and Philip Holt, as the ''Ocean Steamship Company'', ...

to form Exel plc.

History

References

Further reading