KC Group Shipping

KC Group Shipping was founded in 1987 by Raymond Clarkson and Hammond Kennedy, two entrepreneurs who wanted to change the relationship between logistics providers and their clients, rather than just move cargo from one place to another. The company secured its first liner agency agreement two years later with Gdynia America–Polish Ocean Lines, and growth followed steadily from there. In 1994, expansion pushed the head office to Albert House in Glasgow, the same year KC was appointed exclusive agent of CMA CGM. A second major liner agency, CSAV Norasia, followed in 2005.

Leadership began shifting in 2010, when David Milne was appointed Group Director, and the company kept expanding internationally, opening a branch office in La Paz, Bolivia, in 2011. KC became the exclusive agent of Yang Ming Transportation in 2015, and in 2016 Milne completed a management buyout, taking the company forward under new ownership while keeping Clarkson and Kennedy’s founding principles intact. Sales offices in London, Liverpool, and Antwerp opened across 2016 and 2018, and an exclusive partnership with KYFI Inc. of Kentucky followed in 2018.

The company navigated Covid-19 and Brexit between 2020 and 2021, delivering what it describes as unprecedented growth through that period, and in 2021-22 leadership approved “BeKC,” a five-year strategic plan, alongside a move into new, purpose-built head offices in Glasgow.

Today KC Group Shipping, under managing director David Milne, represents 193 countries worldwide, ships more than 10,000 tonnes of cargo every week, and has built up 35 years of service history. It holds AEO status and BIFA membership among its accreditations and describes itself as Scotland’s largest independent logistics provider and one of the UK’s fastest-growing independent liner agencies, built, the company still says, on the same vision Clarkson and Kennedy set out with in 1987.