In August 2004, H&L is founded and we get to work. In December, the first sizable orders come from ADX and ODTH. In 2005, the first employees are hired as permanent staff members. In collaboration with Axis, H&L is renting a warehouse to support the refurbishment of the C&A shops. Other customers also find their way to H&L: Markelbach, Forlog, DFDS, Eurokor, Bisschops, Carga, Groep De Ceuster, Ethnicraft, Goodwill, Waeslandtnatie, I.D.P., and Logidec.

H&L is the driving force behind a thorough reorganization of Sunny Europe. For DFDS, H&L handles Velux’s goods handling. H&L will become a regular partner for unloading containers at Ethnicraft and will be called in to help set up and dismantle their exhibition stands in Brussels, Cologne, Paris, and Valencia. H&L gains the trust of all of its customers. We are doubling our turnover.

Electrabel asks H&L to check the packaging of all of the spare parts in Tihange. Damaged packaging should be replaced. This provides 8 months of work for 8 people. New Roels Display calls on H&L to complete a major display construction project in Paris. H&L is asked by Forlog to load containers at Bruggeman in Ghent. For the launch of the Nippon Shokubai project, WGN relies on H&L’s expertise.

Unloading 200 containers of charcoal. Cleaning 500,000 bottles for Coca Cola Ghent. Elia and Wim Bosman go into business with H&L. Maersk Logistics engages H&L to start up its operations in Willebroek.

First quarter: We are happy to report that Patrick’s surgery went great and he is recovering very well. In the foreseeable future, he will be back part-time. Businesswise, we are on track again. In the first quarter, we increased sales by more than 50% compared to last year and reached the highest average since we started. The staff list has grown to the equivalent of 25 full-time employees.

Second quarter: After a superb first quarter, the second seems to be faltering a bit. Still, we have grown by over 30% compared to last year! If we can continue on this path, we will still be doing an impressive 10% better than 2011, our best year so far. Meanwhile, new ideas have been launched that we expect to become concrete over the next few months. The best news is that Patrick is almost fully recovered and will be up and running in no time. Meanwhile, Wim has fully mastered the craft and he is proving to be an excellent backup. We regret to report that our collaboration with Sven was not the success we had hoped for, so our paths will part.

Third quarter: Patrick has now fully recovered and is welcomed back in to the office. August and September are exceptionally good months in terms of turnover.

Fourth quarter: As good as the third quarter was, the fourth has been far less optimistic. November, in particular, remained below all expectations. Pressured by the new measures taking effect from 1/1/2014, some tough decisions had to be taken, but that is part of the job. Still, the customer base has grown again. Overall, 2013 has been our best year by turnover. It will not be easy to maintain this growth rate: + 17% a year, since 2005.

First quarter: By mutual agreement, the cooperation with 2 clients has been discontinued, as we feel that we cannot offer enough added value. This allows us to focus even more on our core business. That decision is reflected in our turnover, but we are sure we will make up for this. T C L and Manna have been brought in as new customers.

Second quarter: Our existing customers have confirmed our partnerships and are relying on us even more. We are receiving a considerable number of new projects, even to the extent of generating over 30% extra turnover compared to last year, despite some clients reducing their orders. Four more people have been hired.

Third quarter: Anyone who thought that summer was the time to take it easy could not be more wrong. This has been a quarter to be proud of. We recorded an unprecedented  turnover this quarter. Apart from a much-needed one week break in August, our team dug deep.

Fourth quarter: It might be a tad boring, as we can report another success story. Our revenue is up another 24% compared to a weaker fourth quarter in 2013. For the full year, we have generated a 17% revenue growth. With this turnover we can safely say that we are at a nice cruising speed. If we can keep this up, we are on a roll. BUT we are not going to let this lull us to sleep; we are more alert than ever. With Intertrans, we have another new client in our portfolio. Handling 12,500 TEU last year, we can proudly say that, after 10 years of hard work, we’ve become the largest company in Belgium in our industry.

First quarter: We’re celebrating once again, as our turnover peaks. February reports a 65% growth compared to last year, the best monthly and daily turnover we have achieved to date. But, much more importantly, in early February we were told that the sword of Damocles had fallen in our favor! The court of appeal upheld the judgment of the Court of First Instance, thus acquitting us of all sins. Now that all uncertainty is removed, we feel reassured. A subsidy dossier was approved by VLAIO to support the development of a new growth strategy, which we started right after approval. We immediately started working on launching a new website to communicate even better and we have hired two new people.

Second quarter: Unlike the first quarter, there is a slight decline compared to last year – 3%. The overall activity has fallen back without any specific reason. What does delight us is our involvement in a new activity that is starting up at one of our existing clients.

Third quarter: Like last summer, but mainly due to the new activity and an old returning customer, we are again reaching new heights and even doing 10% better than in 2014. Heartfelt thanks to everyone (both employees and interims) who helped make this happen.

Fourth quarter: We have continued the momentum of the third quarter (with a slight dip in September) and landed two new customers with a lot of potential. During the annual survey of our existing customers, all of them gave us complete confidence for the year to come. Meanwhile, the workforce has grown to more than 30 FTE; last year we employed an average of 34 people per day. Ever since the 2008–2009 crisis we have continued to grow by double digits year-on-year.

Overall, operations and growth for 2016, with sales up by almost 10%, are a continuation of the path taken since 2009. Staff numbers continue to rise, with 32 staff on the payroll and counting. Overall, we employed an average of 37 people daily in 2016, sometimes peaking at up to 50 FTE. After all, flexibility is one of H&L Services’ most important assets. Our growth came mainly from existing customers, even though we also proudly added new names to the customer portfolio. Nothing earth-shattering, but it does broaden our client base. Whereas the second and fourth quarters were fairly busy, the summer was quite weak, unlike last year.

During the course of the year, we split into three employment categories at the request of the staff. The criteria for the categories were drawn up together with the employees, as well as the associated remuneration. There was some controversy, of course, but in the end the majority of the staff agreed on the new system, which also brings a clearer division of tasks. Managing director Walter turned 60. Time to plan the succession. Because H&L Services is very people-driven, we first explored the path of an MBO. But that turned out to be more complex than expected, so we are now exploring other options and constructions. Always with the aim of ensuring both short- and long-term continuity for our employees and customers.

It’s starting to sound a bit trite, but our success story isn’t stopping. In 2021, Covid again failed to slow us down. Of course, we had to manage the difficult conditions, as well as the rest of the economy, but we think it is fair to say that we handled it in the right way.

In the first half of the year, we simply continued on with the momentum we had in 2020 and still managed to win another great customer with Eutraco. We were becoming less and less dependent on one big customer, thus spreading the risk.

It might have been too good to be true … On July 2 we were faced with a cyberattack. During the night of July 1 to 2 our IT provider was hacked, which we had not experienced before. Suddenly everything was gone; no mails, no schedule, no history, nothing. We had to make do and fly blind for a while, hoping we wouldn’t have any major accidents along the way. As of the weekend, we were able to fall back on our way of working from 15 years ago and got back on track. It was accompanied by the necessary misery, but everything gradually turned out all right. In the aftermath, we decided to shift up a gear and put everything in the cloud.

In 2020 we had a nice project in Luxembourg during the summer, this year, however, that was not the case, resulting in a decline of +- 10% during the summer months.

Everyone was able to enjoy the wet summer to recharge their batteries and that might just have been what we needed. In September, orders kept filing in and we had days where we employed 90 or more people. The outlook for Q4 was good.

In mid-October, the management team went on a weekend to visualize the future and, additionally, to draw up a plan that we intend to try to stick to. Focus on preserving what we have, with more attention to support at work in general. Partly because of Covid, our operation was somewhat diluted, though there were always opportunities that we could take advantage of.

September’s volumes maintained and even increased. From mid-October, we regularly had to disappoint customers due to lack of capacity, to the extent that it appeared to become a structural problem. We had never experienced this before!

As usual, there was some decline toward the year-end, which was actually a welcome breather. However, orders were already coming in for early January.
As of 01/01/2022, 10 new contracts were drawn up, pushing our workforce toward 75 FTE’s.

We closed 2021 with more than 40,000 TEU on the counter, a 15% increase compared to last year. The outlook for 2022 is good, with some more news in the pipeline.

We started the year brilliantly, partly thanks to H. Essers (who has found its way back) generating no less than a 25% increase in turnover in the first quarter. This was also the quarter in which the war in Ukraine began and Covid quietly faded into the background. Meanwhile, the workforce has increased to more than 75 FTE’s, meaning we can take a beating. To handle 150 to 200 TEU daily, we need all hands on deck.

The second quarter remained at 2021 levels, but we still ended the first half of the year with nice growth figures of 15%, with new customers joining here and there. To keep everything running smoothly, some more people were recruited, giving a total amount of up to 85 people by the beginning of July. Meanwhile, energy prices were rising and some gray clouds were appearing left and right.

In May, our CEO was diagnosed with Kalher’s disease, which put a damper on the festivities, but again we will have to learn to live with this. The tasks were divided, so that it did not have too much impact on our organization and operation. We didn’t hang our heads.

In the third quarter, champagne bottles were popped and some days we peaked at over 100 employees on the job. In this quarter, too, we recorded an increase in sales of more than 20%.

And then there was the fourth quarter, were things about to take a turn? Back in September, we already sensed that our positive streak was not going to last … The impact of world events was also going to affect us. With a few little projects, we still kept running, but we did see an initial decline in business and turnover dropped by just under 10%.

Finishing 2022 with another 10% growth in turnover, over 40,000 TEU handled and 85 FTE on the payroll, we are proud of our achievements.

2023 appears as if it might be a little less cheerful …