In 1863 the British Nederlandsch-Indische Stoomvaartmaatschappij (NISM) had won a tender for a number of subsidized shipping lines in the Dutch East Indies. As a consequence the inter island shipping lines got centered on Singapore. Furthermore all but two of the many ships required were built in the United Kingdom. The minister of colonial affairs Jacobus Sprenger van Eyk and the businessmen Jan Boissevain (1836-1904), Willem Ruys and P.E. Tegelberg then came up with a plan for a new 'national' shipping line.
