The liquidator will see new buyers for the business units, whose services continue without interruption until new owners are found
The decision to wind up the original pan-European intermodal operator, ICF Intercontainer-Interfrigo SA, based in Basel, follows an EGM in Brussels last Friday.
M. Joan Dubaere, a lawyer with Belgian legal firm Racine and Vergels in Brussels has been named as liquidator.
As a result of the liquidation, ICF’s MD Bart Van der Cruysse has resigned, but stays involved in the development of the way forwards for the different businesses.
Today, 145 ICF block trains/shuttles are running throughout Europe. Operating and marketing services of these traffics are managed by the business units West, East and CIS.
The primary target of the liquidation is to transfer the business units and their transport services and their staff as completely and as smoothly as possible and without loss of customers to interested parties.
Therefore, the liquidator decided to continue operating the ICF block train/shuttle services for the time being, which makes a transfer of the services much easier.
Negotiations over the transfer of the business units are ongoing. The success of these negotiations will determine how many jobs are lost.
The problem for ICF in recent years is that, in the so-called “liberalised” rail market, it has often found itself competing not only against “newcomers,” but also against new services organised by traditional, national operators that sometimes belong to its own shareholders.
It has increasingly concentrated on developing new corridors, to the east and south east from Europe, only to have them cherry-picked after it has done the pioneering work. The overall market is not that big, so operators end up “cannibalising” existing traffics.
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