Originally, the company's business consisted exclusively of coastal shipping, but had a rapid expansion from the west coast of South America to the Panama Canal when this was opened to regular traffic.

Founded in 1872 and listed since 1893, CSAV (Compania Sud Americana de Vapores) is one of the oldest shipping lines.

[citation needed] As a result, CSAV has direct departures from the main ports of Asia, Europe, India and the Middle East today.

Hit hard by the global shipping crisis, CSAV incurred heavy losses in 2011, the worst year in its history.

[8] The turnaround strategy had 4 pillars: Refocusing the business on Latin America; enlarging the own fleet; expanding alliances; and cutting cost throughout the organization.

[13] While market conditions remained unchanged, the restructuring reduced CSAV's net loss by 46% to US$169 million in the year 2013.

[14] The company's business initially consisted exclusively of coastal shipping services but these were rapidly extended along the whole west coast of South America to the Panama Canal before this was opened to regular traffic.

Foreign shipyards had a backlog of orders to replace tonnage destroyed in the war, so in January 1920 CSAV bought an existing ship from Toyo Kisen Kaisha and renamed her Renaico.

[16] However, the Panama Canal equally gave shipping companies from the eastern USA access to the west coast of Latin America, so now CSAV faced new competition from Grace Line.

At the time of the crash, CSAV had a new refrigerated cargo ship on order from Lithgows in Scotland, the 5,348 GRT Toltén, launched in July 1930.

[20] CSAV's Valparaíso – New York route suffered the greatest loss, so in June 1931 the company suspended the service[22] and made over Aconcagua and Teno to Lithgows in lieu of payment for Toltén.

In the mid-1930s trade started to recover, so in June 1936 CSAV ordered three new diesel-powered cargo liners from Nakskov Skibsværft in Denmark.

[25] In October the ships on return runs from Europe started to call at New York to load cargo and embark passengers to Chile.

The company today offers services for general and bulk cargo, fresh and frozen products and vehicles, using its own and chartered ships, and establishing permanent links between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America and the rest of the World.

The growth in trade between the different regions of the World has been essential to the current and future development of all countries and other economic benefits.

[citation needed] CSAV operates in the five continents, offering line services for which it is able to provide permanent traffic to certain ports, fixed itineraries and ships designed for carrying large numbers of containers and a wide variety of conventional cargo.

The planned merger includes two capital increases in the combined HL entity totaling 740 million Euros.