History

Over 120 years of forwarding history & know how
combined in the port of Antwerp.
 

In the spring of 2000, the present Levaco
management realised a management buy out
of Navex & Van Meerbeeck and at the same
time they acquired a majority share in Levaco. 

A long history of nearly 85 years was left
behind on December 31st 2002 when the acti-
vities of Navex & Van Meerbeeck were absor-
bed by the 35 year old company “Levaco N.V.”.

Levaco

Levaco was founded in 1967 by two partners, Mr. Lebrun and Mr. Van Der Haeghe, and developped itself as a traditional forwarding company concentrating on seafreight business both for imports and exports, offering value added services troughout a wide range of storage and handling facilities in the Antwerp port.

Completing this forwarding package, Levaco obtained various customs bonds and services in Antwerp, linked directly with the Ministry of Finances in Brussels. When Mr. Lebrun retired back in 1987, Mr. Van Der Haeghe continued with his team upto today.

“You cannot simply walk away from your life time achievement as if it never happened” Mr. Van Der Haeghe motivated his decision to support the new management in future.

Navex & Van Meerbeeck

Luc Huysmans joined Navex & Van Meerbeeck in 1993, first as a director and thereafter as an MD. The company had just merged Van Meerbeeck & Co (founded 1946) and Navex N.V. (founded 1919).

Focusing on the creation of new products and services to dedicated regions with local partnerships at destinations requiring specific know how, a container route was opened in 1994 to Albania supplying the Coca Cola factory with sugar from the UK.

The service was later extended to Kosovo and Macedonia, and at the same time a full service by sea and land was opened to Iran where the economy started to flourish again.

With the launch of UNO’s oil for food program, Navex & Van Meerbeeck succeeded to transport any type of cargo into Iraq under UNO permission, irrespective whether breakbulk, FCL or LCL and irrespective whether via Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon or Syria.

In 1996 a container service was created to CIS serving mainly Central Asia via Baltic or White Sea, later extended with services to the Caucasus via the Black Sea.

   A long history of nearly 85 years
   was left behind on December 31st
   2002 when the activities of Navex
   & Van Meerbeeck were absorbed
   by the 35 year old company “Levaco”.

The planning for the venture of Levaco and Navex & Van Meerbeeck started in the summer of 2000 and was finalised in January 2003.

Backed by a network of well over 500 partners worldwide the company offers the facilities of the multinational global logistic companies in combination with the ultimate flexibility of the local medium sized forwarders.

Since many years Levaco is a member of the Antwerp Chamber of Commerce, the Belgian Freight Forwarders Association and FIATA.

The combination, of traditional skils of Levaco with the innovating capabilities of Navex & Van Meerbeeck turns out to be a winning combination.

The service level which made both companies succesfull over the last decennia remains fully intact and moreover was extended by a new software system in the beginning of 2002.

The new software applications are offering new opportunities for the Levaco customers with the facilities of EDI communications, stock reporting and tailor made documentation depending on the their requirements.