Österreichischer Lloyd

Österreichischer Lloyd (Italian: Lloyd Austriaco, English: Austrian Lloyd) was the largest Austro-Hungarian shipping company. It was founded in 1833. It was based at Trieste in the Austrian Littoral, the main port of the Cisleithanian (Austrian) half of the Dual Monarchy.

As a result of the First World War the company was transferred into Italian hands. Operations continued from the port of Trieste under the name Lloyd Triestino, which was changed to Italia Marittima on 1 March 2006. It is now part of Evergreen Group.

In 1833, 19 sea transport insurance companies, banking houses and numerous individual shareholders, among them the Austrian politician Karl Ludwig von Bruck, decided to form the Austrian Lloyd Trieste. Originally the company answered the purpose to exchange information on European maritime trade and oversea markets, modelled on Lloyd's Register in London. Relying on a network of business correspondents and newspapers circulating in the Port of Trieste, it issued shipping news and also undertook to provide postal services with sailing vessels supplied by the Austrian Navy.

Within a short period of its formation, the administration applied to Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria for the privilege of steam navigation with the Levant. On 20 April 1836 the steam-navigation department was introduced, and during its second meeting on 2 August the same year the department decided to build six steamships. For this reason, 1836 is considered the year the company was founded.

In 1844 the company grew again when it acquired First Danubian Steam Navigation Company's line via Constantinople to Smyrna along with all its equipment. A year later, Austrian Lloyd was declared the property of the postal service of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

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