About Us
Felipe J. Alvarado & Cia. Sucs., S.A.
Felipe J. Alvarado & Cía. Sucs., S.A. its a port agency in Costa Rica, that offer several services as a P&I Club's Correspondent, Ships brokers, Survey inspections, and Legal Maritime Services. The company was founded on July 26th, 1864 under the name of "COMPANIA DE AGENCIAS DE COSTA RICA", by a great number of local personalities, involved mainly in the import/export business, but also in the banking and political affairs of Costa Rica. The main object of this company was to manage shipping and custom brokerage activity.
Since the infrastructure of our country was very primitive and inadequate at that time, the government subscribed, in 1890, a contract with the "Northern Railway Company", a British company, to build a railway and the respective wharfs, in the ports of Limon, in the Caribbean Coast and Puntarenas/Carrillo, in the Pacific Coast. Our company was in turn contracted, by the British company, to handle all shipping business including the loading and unloading of cargo. This contract was signed by Mr. Roberto Jimenez-Saenz as representative of our company.
In 1893, Northern Railway Company, having concluded the construction of the railways and piers, decided to terminate the contract and to undertake themselves the shipping activity. As can be easily understood, our company faced a tremendous competitor. The newly imposed tariffs, made it extremely difficult to survive. This prompted the shareholders meeting of 1894, to dissolve the company in view of an eminent bankruptcy. It was at this meeting that two of the shareholders, Mr. Felipe J. Alvarado and Mr. Roberto Jimenez-Saenz suggested the take over of the company and in 1895, the name of the company was change to "Felipe J. Alvarado y Compania Sucesores de Agencias y Comisiones, Sociedad Anonima", later shorten to its actual name.
