History
The roots of Brenntag Latin America, former Holland Chemical International (HCI), dates back to 27th February 1920 in Holland, and the establishment of the NV Handel Maatsschapij “Holanda Colombia voorhen J. & W. Wegman”. This trading operation was located in Barranquilla, Colombia, distributing kerosene and fuel oil. These two products came from Shell’s recently completed refinery on Curacao.
In 1960, the company was acquired by a small private group, residents of the Netherlands Antilles. One of these groups was Gerry (G. J.) Staartjes, an alumnus of a prestigious Dutch business school, who was employed by the locally published “Beurs-en Nieuwsberichten” since 1953. Within a short period, he took over the day-to-day management.
Under Mr. Staartjes’ stewardship, the company rapidly expanded, buoyed by the industrialization of Latin America. All efforts were focused on developing operations in Colombia and neighboring countries. New offices were opened in Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, the countries of Central America, and subsequently Brazil, Chile and in the Dominican Republic. In Central America, HCI was established in Guatemala 31 years ago and expanded to El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.
The company developed a network of logistics and logistical support facilities, and its own storage tank network. As the company expanded, Mr. Staartjes moved its headquarters to the Colombian capital of Bogota. Gerry Staartjes invested the revenues back to HCI to ensure continue growth of the company.
Distribution activities spurred the need for a wider logistics infrastructure, including bulk storage and shipping. The group built storage terminals for liquid and solid chemicals in the various national markets, and established a tanker fleet to ship these products from the United States and Europe. Fleet management, including filling the otherwise empty return leg, was centralized at the Houston office in the U.S.A. During the 1980's Mr. Staartjes induced to move parts of his operational division to Houston. It also became the base for centralized purchasing of goods sourced for Central and South America.
Holland Chemical International undertook expansion into North America in the 1980's, followed by Europe in the 1990's. Geographic spread advanced with increasing foreign exchange transactions, and the transfer was prompted of the holding company from Colombia to Bermuda. Subsequently in late 1993, ongoing internationalization and the mission of becoming a global player brought the company home again to Holland, where it had been registered.
September 1999 will long be seen as a milestone in corporate history, since this was the month in which Brenntag submitted a takeover bid to the shareholders in Holland Chemical International (HCI), which 99.1% of them accepted on November 15, 2000.
And so the global market leader in full-line chemical distribution (based on most recent market data) was created. At the time of the takeover, Brenntag was the market leader in Europe and held fourth place in North America, with more than one hundred locations and sales of about 1.5 billion Dollars. HCI contributed sales of about 1.3 billion Dollars and its position as the fifth largest chemicals distributor worldwide - with large market shares in, primarily, Scandinavia, eastern Europe and the USA. In Latin America, where Brenntag had not been represented hitherto, HCI was number one.
In this way, market positions are complementary and so is customer structure - Brenntag supplies large quantities to lacquer and paint manufacturers, to the plastics and food-processing industries and to the chemicals industry, whereas HCI's major customers are the oil and gas industry, personal care and the foodstuffs industry.
Today nearly all of those dedicated employees now part of BRENNTAG LATIN AMERICA. The entrepreneurial spirit of the original HCI still remains strong within Brenntag.
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