History
The Company was founded by the four Ferguson Brothers (Peter, Daniel, Louis and Robert) who left the Fleming & Ferguson shipyard in Paisley to lease the Newark yard in Port Glasgow in March 1903. The Ferguson brothers acquired the freehold in the Newark yard in 1907. The Company was purchased by John Slater Ltd. (Amalgamated Industries) in 1918, but was returned to the control of the Ferguson family in the late 1920s. Lithgows Ltd. purchased an interest in the business in 1955 after Bobby Ferguson's death and took control of the Company in 1961. The Company remained a separate entity within the Scott Lithgow group from 1969 to 1977.
The Company was nationalised and subsumed into British Shipbuilders in 1977. The business was merged with the Ailsa Shipbuilding Company to form Ferguson-Ailsa Ltd. in 1980. Ferguson and Ailsa were separated again in 1986 and Ferguson merged with Appledore Shipbuilders in Devon to form Appledore Ferguson. By the late 1980s the only yards still held in state ownership were the smaller Appledore and Ferguson yards. Ferguson was demerged from Appledore and acquired by Greenock-based engineering firm Clark Kincaid in 1989 and started trading as Ferguson Shipbuilders. Clark Kincaid itself was acquired by Kvaerner and became Kvaerner Kincaid in 1990.
Ferguson Shipbuilders Ltd. was sold by Kvaerner to Ferguson Marine plc in 1991. The entire shareholding in Ferguson Marine was acquired by the Holland House Electrical Group in 1995. Former owner Kvaerner Kincaid was sold to Scandiaverken in 1999 and later ceased manufacturing at its Cartsburn site in Greenock during 2000.
Read more about this topic: Ferguson Shipbuilders
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