BW Group is a maritime company involved in shipping, floating gas infrastructure and deep-water oil & gas production. The company has over 350 vessels managed by an international team of over 7000 staff worldwide. The group was founded by Sir Yue-Kong Pao in Hong Kong in 1955 as World-Wide Shipping. In 2003, the company acquired Bergesen d.y. ASA, Norway's largest shipping company, which was founded in 1935 by Sigval Bergesen the Younger. In 2005, the business was re-branded as BW. With its LNG and LPG fleets combined, BW Group owns and operates the world's largest gas shipping fleet of more than 115 gas vessels, including four FSRUs (floating storage and regasification units). Hafnia, a member of the BW Group, operates the world's largest fleet of oil product tankers, and BW Offshore comprises the second largest number of floating oil and gas production units (FPSOs). BW's controlled fleet of over 350 ships also includes crude oil supertankers and dry bulk carriers. BW Group currently comprises BW LPG, BW LNG, Epic Gas, DHT, Hafnia, BW Dry Cargo, BW Offshore, BW Energy, and BW Solar. Overview BW Group is built on the foundations of two long-standing shipping businesses: World-Wide Shipping (founded by Sir Yue-Kong Pao) and Bergesen d.y., which was acquired by World-Wide in 2003. In the late 1970s, two British Hongs were taken over by Chinese entrepreneurs: Hutchison Whampoa Ltd by Li Ka-Shing, and Kowloon Wharf by Sir Yue-Kong Pao. Sir Y.K. Pao was a native from Ningbo, Zhejiang province who came to Hong Kong in 1949 and acquired an aging ship to establish the Worldwide Shipping Company in 1955. At its peak in 1979, World-Wide had 204 ships totaling . When the shipping downturn started in 1978, World-Wide sold tonnage while prices were still reasonable, paying off debt and building cash resources. In less than five years the fleet had halved in size, allowing World-Wide to avoid the crises suffered by many shipping companies. In 1989, Pao passed on his interest in World-Wide to his eldest daughter, Anna Sohmen-Pao, shortly before his death in 1991. World-Wide was ranked as the sixth largest shipping fleet (number of vessels) in the world in 2004 and has been chaired by Helmut Sohmen, Pao's eldest daughter's husband, since 1986. In late 2000, following a period of stake building starting in Bergesen d.y., the Sohmen family came to an agreement in March 2003 with Morten Bergesen