About us

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.

In 1948, the owners of DKT created a forwarding company: De Keyser Expeditions (DKE), allowing them to offer their customers a wider range of transport-related services.

In 2000, DKT became a part of the NAXCO Group, one of the largest fully integrated shipping and logistics providers, present in all segments of the transport chain worldwide (read more about Naxco on www.naxco.com).

Thanks to this strategic alliance, we were 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 worldwide coverage of ports.

Early 2008, the DKT-group took over the activities and staff of SBTC-Sotramar, a very renowned Antwerp forwarder, specialised mainly in project cargoes and chemicals. Thanks to this acquisition, we managed to expand our forwarding activities considerably. On this occasion, the forwarding-leg was renamed Sotramar & De Keyser nv.

In 2014, the DKT-group acquired a majority shareholding in Das Logistics, a forwarder specialised in airfreight, and located on Brussels airport, thus reinforcing the forwarding-leg with a highly skilled specialist in Airfreight.

Also in 2014, De Keyser Thornton joined forces with Allseas Global Logistics in the UK to create DKT Allseas Shipping Ltd (short: DKA). DKA is the exclusive agent in the UK and Ireland for The Shipping Corporation of India.

The DKT-group is a member of various worldwide organisations. With our shipping activities, we are a member of the NAXCO PORT AGENCY NETWORK. With our forwarding leg we are a member of the GLOBAL ALLIANCE CORPORATION (GAL). These memberships provide us with a network of contacts all over the world, all of whom have been screened for quality and reliability.

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

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 offers our customers a top quality service and appropriate solutions for all problems they might be facing.