Royal Atlantic Transport

Royal Atlantic Transport Group is an Antillan publicly-owned corporation, which is the country's largest transportation company. Founded in 1948 as a Crown corporation when Antilla was still a dominion under the British crown, Royal Atlantic Transport came under Antillan government ownership in 1955 when Antilla became a sovereign Commonwealth realm. Following the country's 1961 transformation into a republic, Royal Atlantic Transport was re-designated a state-owned enterprise, which in practice was only a change in terminology. In 1977, following nearly a decade of declining profit, Royal Atlantic Transport found itself on the verge of bankruptcy, which the government attempted to address by reclassifying the corporation as a public company and offering to sell its shares at a steep discount.

The new public company was quickly acquired by private American and European investors as well as a Canadian hedge fund, and by 1980 the company managed to repay all debts for which it was liable and began reporting record profits. Royal Atlantic Transport acquired Antilla Atlantic Airlines in 1983, at the time a small regional airline with a fleet of only ten aircraft, which it transformed into a major regional airline in less than ten years. Royal Atlantic Transport also acquired the formerly private West Indies Ferry Company in 1985, which by 1990 it had expanded to become the primary walk-on and vehicle passenger ferry service connecting Antilla's populated islands and six neighbouring island countries via multiple-times-daily service. Between 1990 and 2000, Royal Atlantic Transport acquired a further 14 companies in the maritime transport, shipbuilding, construction and petroleum industries, growing to become one of the largest corporations in the Eastern Caribbean by total revenue and scale of operations. At the end of fiscal year 2020, it reported a total of US$7.78 billion in revenue, the most ever in a single year.

Today, Royal Atlantic Transport operates in over 20 countries in the Caribbean, North America and Central America, but maintains its global headquarters in the Antillan capital of Christiansby. In 2017, the corporation moved its headquarters from the Royal Atlantic Towers at the Port of Christiansby to the newly completed Atlantic Centre on the waterfront of central Christiansby.