Could you briefly introduce the company?

Den Hartogh is one of the world’s leading logistics service providers. It is family-owned and established in 1920 in the Netherlands. We serve the chemical, polymer, gas and most recently food markets, with a global capacity spanning more than 24,000 tank containers, 5,000 dry bulk containers as well as 1,000 trucks and tank trailers across 27 countries. Our global network allows us to manage products door-to-door. Today, Den Hartogh is represented in six Asia Pacific (APAC) countries with our own local offices. 

Could you walk us through Den Hartogh’s expansion into APAC?

Den Hartogh started expanding outside of Europe about a decade ago. The acquisition of the InterBulk group of companies in 2016 gave us a truly global presence, including offices in Singapore and Shanghai. Three years later, the company’s ambitions in APAC went beyond these two cities, as we recognized the region to be an epicenter for chemicals growth. Our footprint has since expanded both organically and inorganically. The 2021 acquisition and integration of the MUTO group of companies, a market leader in Korea and one of the biggest players in both Thailand and Malaysia, granted us three new offices in Seoul, Bangkok and Klang. During the same period, we also acquired and merged a Chinese domestic trucking company, Shanghai Xintao Dangerous Cargo Transportation (XT Logistics), which positioned us to provide first and last-mile services in China. On the organic side in 2023, we set up our Indonesian base with offices in Jakarta and Surabaya primarily for the dry bulk business, and we also recently signed a strategic partnership with Daelim’s tank container division to explore potential synergies as we jointly increase market outreach.

Why do you see APAC as an epicentre for chemicals and what comes next in your growth strategy?

Asia is home to the fastest-growing middle class population in the world. We established local offices in what we call the “six dragons in Asia” - China, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia - petrochemical hubs with their own refineries and downstream chemical chains. Despite current economic and geopolitical headwinds, Den Hartogh is still confident to invest in more assets. In 2023, the company invested €59 million in additional CapEx for new ISO tanks and dry bulk containers. The next phase of our growth in APAC is to explore logistics cluster services. Through cluster services, ISO tanks from various operators are transported by Den Hartogh’s trucks directly into the manufacturing facility for loading or unloading operations. This helps our customers to flexibly scale up or down their operations and, most importantly, it leads to safer handling. Besides, we are also assessing storage and stock projects for customers who prefer ISO tanks over terminal storage. Finally, we are actively exploring potential JVs outside of the six APAC locations which we are already in.

What market segments provide the most opportunities moving forward?

There are at least five PMCs (product market combinations) that we are set on: One is electrolytes used in EVs. We recently invested in electric cooling tanks, with temperature telematics, which facilitate door-to-door transportation of electrolytes. Isocyanates, used in the production of polyurethane (PU), are a second vector of growth. Den Hartogh is one of the top market players in the transportation of isocyanates for both intra-APAC and also inter-continental trade lanes. The third pillar of growth is our food-grade business, as we seek to leverage on the recent 2024 acquisition of H&S Group, a European leader in the transportation of liquid foodstuffs. Fourth is the dry bulk containerization of polymers, a new strategic growth area for us for two main reasons: dry bulk containers and pressure discharge tanks offer better cost economics for the transportation (lower cost per ton) of polymers compared to using jumbo bags via smaller shuttling operations. Also, containerized intermodal transportation is both safer and environmentally more sustainable, especially when using rail services. Lastly, demand for biofuels presents a compelling growth opportunity. Den Hartogh is transporting used cooking oil (UCO) and tallow to feed into biorefineries producing Sustainable Aviation Fuel in APAC.