With Jan Pellens, the Antwerp port world loses an icon. The Antwerp resident died on Friday at the age of 84 in the ZNA Jan Palfijn. For many years he was the big boss of Hessenatie, which, with Jan at the helm, was one of the largest transshipment companies in the port of Antwerp.
Jan Pellens was closely involved in the rise of the port of Antwerp as a container port for several decades. He can be labeled as one of the engines behind that success story. It was the time when Pellens was in charge of Hessenatie, then one of the largest transhipment companies in the port of Antwerp and the first to set up a large container terminal along the Scheldt itself. Such a terminal before the locks saved a lot of time when unloading and loading the largest container ships in service.
“I dreamed of exotic horizons. I regularly traveled to Congo with the Ville boats and to the Gulf of Mexico several times with the cargoes.”
Jan Pellens
For the Antwerp resident it all started at CMB, the Compagnie Maritime Belge, after his studies at the Higher Maritime School. Pellens’ father was deputy director of the Banque d’Anvers, but that did not mean much to him. “I dreamed of exotic horizons,” he admitted to the maritime magazine a few years ago Flows. “I regularly went to Congo with the Ville boats and several times to the Gulf of Mexico with the cargoes. We also once brought material to Cape Canaveral.”
Career at Hessenatie
Pellens soon realized that life at sea was not what he had expected, and in 1964 he decided – partly due to his marriage – to stay ashore permanently. After a stint at a consultancy firm, he ended up at Hessenatie as a cargo inspector in 1966. “It was hard shift work: day and night, summer and winter, Christmas and New Year. Quite quickly a position of nation boss became available. With the support of my parents-in-law and my father, I was able to buy in for 2.5 million francs, after a small exam. But above all: you still had to be formally elected by the general meeting of nation bosses. They did that with tokens.”
“With the support of my parents-in-law and my father, I was able to purchase from Hessenatie for 2.5 million francs, after a small exam”
Jan Pellens
“Everyone received a yes and a no token and had to put their choice in a bus,” Jan explains. “That voting material later all disappeared under PSA. Anyway, I was elected.” With Pellens at the helm, Hessenatie grew into one of the leading companies in the port of Antwerp. The first Japanese car – a Honda – was located at quay 408 of the ship. Hessenatie also received the first container liner service.
Collision with Huts
With all this in mind, the company’s board of directors entrusted him with the position of commercial director. For example, he had to visit existing customers and recruit new customers. In 1980 he became CEO of the company. Under his leadership, Hessenatie moved up a gear. For example, he wanted to build the first terminal on the Scheldt quays for container storage. Not much later – in 1988 – the first collision with Fernand Huts occurred. According to him, the concession was awarded without a public tender.
“After the death of Carlo Van Gestel in 1995, Marc Saverys bought Noord Natie to merge the two entities and create a broader base”
Jan Pellens
In the early 2000s, there was a merger between the two port companies Hessenatie and Noord Natie. And according to Pellens, that caused a lot of misery. “Then the bad times started. After the death in 1995 of Carlo Van Gestel, CEO of Noord Natie, Marc Saverys bought (in 1991 the Saverys family bought the entire CMB arm, ed.) Noord Nation to merge the two entities and create a broader base,” he said in an interview with the maritime magazine. Flows.
Quite abrupt ending
Not much later, in 2002, Pellens’ (then) career as one of the top people from the port of Antwerp ended quite abruptly. Pellens then had no choice but to watch passively as the main shareholder of Hessenatie (CMB) sold the company to the Singaporean state-owned company Port of Singapore Authority (PSA). “After the contract was signed, they accused him of having paid too much for Noord Natie, while he had nothing to do with it at all,” says former journalist and port expert at Gazette of Antwerp Paul Verbraeken. “They just discarded it then.”
“They accused him of charging too much for Noord Natie, while he had nothing to do with it”
Paul Verbraeken, ex-journalist and port expert
Pellens has few good memories of this episode. “I was pushed back into a second-class role and then put on hold,” says Jan. According to the former CEO of Hessenatie, “all the people who had made Hessenatie a success had to disappear”. In 2005, Pellens officially retired from PSA.
Career after Hessenation
Yet that did not immediately mean the end of Jan Pellens in the port. Shortly after the inauguration of the Deurganck dock in 2005, he started working as an independent consultant. Customers included Rent-A-Port, APEC, CMA and Euroports. He then founded International Maritime Transport Advisors (IMTA), with which he taught Vietnam, among other things, how to transport containers by water in 2014. But after the liquidation in 2017, Jan Pellens finally said goodbye to port life.
“If you have worked all your life, it is not a nice feeling that you are no longer allowed to contribute to society”
Jan Pellens
He was now already 78 years old. And he still missed work life during his retirement. “I often walk with my dog in the Peerdsbos. I play tennis in Beveren three times a week and always stop on the Antwerp Ring, especially on the way back. I read a lot and am an avid e-reader. But if you have worked all your life and are still good, you still lose your networks as a retiree. And if you have to say on your CV that you are almost 80… The feeling that you are no longer allowed to contribute to society is not a nice feeling,” Pellens said in an interview with the maritime magazine Flows in 2019.
Tags: PORTRAIT driving force successful port companies Antwerp died Jan Pellens
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