Face of Flanders: Fernand Huts

Huts weighs in with strong opinions, including that he should be allowed to employ whomever he pleases and not only those designated by the law in Belgium as a bone fide dockworker. That’s led to clashes with unions, the port authority and the government and, while his threat was minimised by the unions last week, the idea that he might pick up his ball and go play somewhere else is not negligible.

Huts’ father moved to Antwerp in the 1930s and worked his way up to boss of Trouwnatie, one of the many historical dock and logistics companies in Antwerp, known as naties (nations). Fernand, born in 1950, went to the Sint-Jan Berchmans Jesuit college in Antwerp, then studied law in Leuven before setting up his own company growing organic produce.

When he was 31, he went to work for Katoen Natie, by then being run by his father. Huts not only took over the job of CEO, he bought out remaining shareholders and is now sole owner.

That’s allowed him to run the place according to his own will and that of his ever-present wife Karine. One thing many people may not suspect is Huts’ aesthetic side. His company, its roots in textiles, maintains a museum of antique textiles in Antwerp. Just last week it hosted the world congress on antique textiles from the Nile Valley, attended by representatives of some of the world’s most prestigious museums, including the Louvre and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“At the end of the 1980s, I went to the doctor,” Huts once told Humo magazine. “He told me, if you go on working this hard, you won’t be able to work at all any longer. So I decided to spend more time on the things that give me pleasure.”