New York Oversea,Inc.
NEW YORK OVERSEA COMPANY, INC.
AN important and successful enterprise engaged r in export and import trade is that of the New York Oversea Company, Inc., having its New York office at 17 Battery Place. This company was organized December, 1916, being created as the American house of the Oversea Export and Import Company (Det Oversoiske Kom- pagnie), of Christiania, Norway.
The officers of the company are Chr. B. Lo- rentzen, president; Leif H. Strom, vice-president; and Robert Kjarsgaard, secretary and treasurer.
The company does general export and import business, covering practically a world-wide trade, with special departments for grain, for paper (being probably one of the largest opera-tors in this line), and machinery. And in addi-tion to these special departments, they cover general lines of export and import in all branches of international trade. Besides the main offices at Christiania and New York, there are branches at Stockholm, Copenhagen, London, Paris, Marseilles, Genoa, San Francisco, Seattle, Las Palmas, Teneriffe, Ma- ranham, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires,
Valparaiso, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tientsin, Calcutta, Batavia, Samarang, Soerabaia, Durban, Cape Town, Johannesburg. The company has membership in the New York Produce Exchange, Chicago Board of Trade, Baltimore Chamber of Commerce, American Spice Trade Association, and the Rubber Trade Association of New York.
The parent house in Christiania, Norway, is one of great prominence in the exporting and importing business, having developed its business by the process of healthy evolution, widening the sphere of its operations after careful studies and surveys of opportunities in the various fields of trade, which now, as is well shown by the list of branches above enumerated, in all of which the company is ably represented by agents and local managers thoroughly familiar with the resources and conditions of trade in their respective territories.
New York has, during the three years from its incorporation, been an increasingly important center of the activities of the company, this being largely due to the initiative and organizing ability of Leif H. Strom, the vice-president of the company. He is a native of Christiania, born there on August 27, 1890. His father, Hag- barth Strom, was a professor at the Royal University of Christiania, who saw to it that his son had the benefit of sound education in the schools of Christiania and in the Royal University, from which he was graduated, and then studied in the University of Glasgow, specializing in the famous course of that uni-versity in naval architecture. On his return to Christiania, however, he thought he saw better opportunities in international trade than in the profession of a naval architect, and he therefore determined to seek a training in export and im-port trade.
He went to Germany, after a year and a half of connection with overseas commerce in Chris-tiania, and for two years he was connected with importing and exporting business, learning the business both practicallv and theoretically and acquiring an intimate knowledge of world commerce as far as it could be acquired there, followed by six months in Paris.
Desiring to study foreign trade from the New World as well as from the European standpoint, he went as a commercial traveler to South Amer-ica, making his headquarters in Brazil, and for three years was engaged in the promotion of trade between South American countries and Europe, finally being recalled to Christiania by the Oversea Export and Import Company, Ltd., of that city, to take charge of its South American department.
Meanwhile the European War was being strenuously fought, and with commercial events and restrictions that made America the world's most important source of supply for rood stuffs and the most important lines of man-ufactured goods, and every European nation, belligerent and neutral, as trying with the other n the endeavor to secure the necessary sup- rues. In view of this, the company in Chris- rianla sent Leif H. Strom to New York to open an, and the incorporation of the New York . Company, Inc., was the result. Mr. Strom has been untiring in his successful efforts to make this New York company one of the most successful in international trade.
The head office has its own sardine packeries in Norway as well as paper mills and a veneer plant Norway, oil mills at Maranhan, Brazil, and at Bitavia, Java, also a paper mill in Pernambuco, Brazil.
All of the officers are men of large experience, much of the success of the business here due Robert Kjarsgaard, secretary and treasurer. H was born in Aalborg, Denmark, September - 1889. After completing his education Aalborg, he was for three years in the grain bus there with Hans Larsen, learing the trade the thoroughly, then for four years in Hamburg, Germany, in the grain and feedstuff business with the house of C. Jul Lorentzen, representing Russian Roumanian, Argentine and American grain exporters. Since 1912 he has resided in the United States, all the time being engaged in the grain and export buisness, first with the Nye & Jenks Grain Company, and then with Bunge & Born, and since 1916 with the New York Overseas Company, Inc.
He is a member of the New York Produce Ex-change, Chicago Board of Trade, Baltimore Chamber of Commerce, Huntington Golf Club, Marine Club, and Canadian Club, and he is prominent in both business and social circles.
The New York Oversea Company, Inc., has connections and agencies which make it an unsurpassed medium for export and import transactions. It brings experience and accurate knowledge into the service of its clients and customers, with shipping connections enabling prompt attention to export and import orders.
Under the efficient direction of Mr. Kjarsgaard the New York office has steadily advanced to a prominent place in the city's export and import trade. Its connections and facilities have been improved by the removal of war restrictions that long hampered ocean commerce.
