Hutchison Port Holdings, the port arm of tycoon Li Ka-Shing's Hutchison Whampoa group, has fired 11 of its 12-strong Amsterdam Container Terminal management team.
Those getting the chop include long term chief executive Pieter Bas Bredius.
While a spokesman for Hong Kong-based Hutchison declined to comment to Cargonews Asia this morning, the Dutch press reported that only the operations manager was being retained to enable the terminal to quickly restart should a customer be found.
Until last month, giant Japanese carrier NYK Line was the only customer of the terminal. NYK acquired the 10-year-old ACT, formerly known as Ceres Paragon, when the carrier took over the US Ceres terminals group in 2002.
It called at Amsterdam as a member of the Grand Alliance.
NYK subsequently offloaded the terminal to Hutchison following a share swap deal in December 2008 through which HPH became the majority shareholder of Ceres Container Terminals Europe (CTE).
At the time, HPH boss John Meredith said the investment in CTE would help strengthen HPH's presence in northern Europe through the addition of extra container-handling capacity.
He said CTE's strategic location allowed it to attract deepsea, feeder and inland traffic.
But even the global might of Hutch, the world's biggest terminal operator, was not enough to attract new customers.
The ultra modern Ceres Paragon was opened in 2001 amid great fanfare. It has the capacity to handle one million TEUs, but that figure has never been reached.
Two of three deep sea container services at ACT were terminated last year, halving the port's throughput to 200,000 TEUs in 2009.
Since opening, the Amsterdam city council has poured in investment funding of around US$175 million.
Those getting the chop include long term chief executive Pieter Bas Bredius.
While a spokesman for Hong Kong-based Hutchison declined to comment to Cargonews Asia this morning, the Dutch press reported that only the operations manager was being retained to enable the terminal to quickly restart should a customer be found.
Until last month, giant Japanese carrier NYK Line was the only customer of the terminal. NYK acquired the 10-year-old ACT, formerly known as Ceres Paragon, when the carrier took over the US Ceres terminals group in 2002.
It called at Amsterdam as a member of the Grand Alliance.
NYK subsequently offloaded the terminal to Hutchison following a share swap deal in December 2008 through which HPH became the majority shareholder of Ceres Container Terminals Europe (CTE).
At the time, HPH boss John Meredith said the investment in CTE would help strengthen HPH's presence in northern Europe through the addition of extra container-handling capacity.
He said CTE's strategic location allowed it to attract deepsea, feeder and inland traffic.
But even the global might of Hutch, the world's biggest terminal operator, was not enough to attract new customers.
The ultra modern Ceres Paragon was opened in 2001 amid great fanfare. It has the capacity to handle one million TEUs, but that figure has never been reached.
Two of three deep sea container services at ACT were terminated last year, halving the port's throughput to 200,000 TEUs in 2009.
Since opening, the Amsterdam city council has poured in investment funding of around US$175 million.