[jason taylor]

Holding Lines:

This is a type of shipping franchise. Each ship is incorporated separately and shares are available public. Sometimes preferred shares are given supervoting rights to prevent a ship from being "legally hijacked". A central firm finances each ship and assigns it's ships to various enterprises, in return holding shares in every ship. The system is usually not used on proper lines as the regimented scheduling would not be born by individual skippers and owners. Instead it provides a league of privately subsidized free traders with a system for keeping them from poaching each other's turf, or alternately exploiting new opportunities.