De Keyser Thornton - history

De Keyser Thornton (DKT) was founded in 1853 and is up until today one of the oldest and largest privately owned shipping agencies in Antwerp.

Although liner agency is still the core business, the DKT Group has expanded over the years and today offers a wide range of transport related services. In addition to shipping agency services, we are active in chartering, ship’s management and tramp-agency, forwarding and warehousing, container logistics, trucking and intermodal transport. This complete range of activities enables us to offer our customers a completely integrated service.

In 2000, the DKT Group became a part of the Naxco Group of companies, a leading French group also specialised in shipping and transport related activities (read more about Naxco on www.naxco.com). Thanks to this strategic alliance, we are able to offer quality services not only in all Belgian ports, but also in all ports in France and The Netherlands.

In 2006, the DKT-group bought two companies: Unamar and Trimar. Both are Antwerp liner agencies with an excellent reputation. This acquisition allowed us to expand our wordlwide coverage of ports.

Early 2008, the DKT-group took over the activities and staff of SBTC-Sotramar. The latter is a very renowned Antwerp forwarder, specialised mainly in project cargoes and chemicals.

The DKT Group is a member of various worldwide organisations. With our shipping activities, we are a member of the MULTIPORT INDEPENDENT SHIP AGENCIES NETWORK. With our forwarding leg we are a member of the AEROCEANETWORK (AON). These memberships provide us with a network of contacts all over the world, all of whom have been screened for quality and reliability.

The strength of the DKT Group lies mainly in its very experienced and highly skilled staff, supported by state of the art computer systems. This combination allows us to face all the challenges of todays and tomorrows market place and offer our customers a top quality service and appropriate solutions for all problems they might be facing.