This shipping company existed for only a few years and owned only one small freighter, the old steamer VILLE DE GENÈVE. The company was probably founded in 1948 and thought to have folded after the sale of the steamer seven years later. The office of Société Auxiliaire de Transports S.A. was located at 3, Rue Muller-Brun (now Rue Gustave-Muller-Brun) in the Eaux Vives district of Geneva. A Ch. Morin served as a member of the board of directors.

It is understood that this owning company delegated the operation of the ship to the company Comptoire Générale de Transports S.a.r.l. at 7 rue Papère in the centre of Marseille. This operating company, owned by Marc Vincenzini, specialised in maritime transport from France to North Africa. Marc Vincenzini had also organised sea transports of relief goods for the prisoners of war on behalf of the ICRC and had good relations with V.N.K. in Rotterdam.

The V.N.K. Verenigde Nederlandse Kustvaart Belangen*) was an association of three Dutch shipping companies, N.V. Scheepvaartbedrijf 'Gruno' Amsterdam, Dammers & van der Heide Rotterdam and Van Nievelt, Goudriaan & Co.’s Stoomvaart Maatschappij (NiGoCo) Rotterdam. From their branch office in Marseille, they operated for a short time, from 1946 to 1954, a regular coastal services from the French ports on the Atlantic and the Mediterranean to North Africa, especially Algeria and Morocco. None of these three companies still exist today. Under the name "Lignes Etoile Blanche", Nievelt Goudriaan continued this service until the 1970s.

Until the sale of the VILLE DE GENÈVE in the spring of 1955, she sailed in a regular liner service between Marseille and Casablanca in Morocco, presumably in loose association with V.N.K.

After the renewal of the class was due in autumn 1955, the shipping company decided to sell the old ship, because the repair costs were not in any reasonable proportion to the possible income. In the course of the political upheavals in North Africa, Comptoire Générale de Transports also got into financial difficulties and went bankrupt in the early 1960s.

*) Loosely translated "United Dutch Coastal Shipping Interests".

SwissShips - HPS / JTA February 2021

Sources:
- Federal Archives Bern
- Lloyds London
- Huug Pieterse, Arkel, Netherlands