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The case describes the strategy and structure of a leading diversified shipping company. Faced with perhaps the most serious depression the shipping industry has ever known, the management of Furness Withy has to develop a strategy which will maintain the company's viability in the 1980s. This is being attempted by a process of diversification, partly away from shipping, by an increase in containerisation, both independently and in conjunction with others, and by rationalisation of existing shipping activities. At the same time management must also counter the possibility of an attack by one of possibly several acquisitive predators, mindful of the difference between the company's market capitalisation and the value of its assets.