Hutchison Port Holdings
Hutchison Port Holdings Limited, trading as Hutchison Ports, is a private holding company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. The port operator group is a subsidiary of CK Hutchison Holdings. Some operation of the company were listed as Hutchison Port Holdings Trust in Singapore Exchange.
In 2016, the network comprised 48 port operations throughout Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, the Americas and Australasia.
History
In 2005, HPH was the largest port operator in the world, with a 33.2 million TEU throughput, and 8.3% world market share.In April 2006, Hutchison Whampoa sold a 20% share of Hutchison Port Holdings Limited to PSA International for $US4.4 billion, retaining ownership of the remaining 80%.
In 2011, some of the assets was spin-off as a listed company as ; the listed company was incorporated as a business trust under Singapore's Business Trusts Act.
In September 2016, HPH rebranded its network as Hutchison Ports.
In December 2016, the Chornomorsk commercial seaport in western Ukraine, signed a cooperation agreement with Hutchison Ports. Among the agreed upon points are the company's entry into the port as a terminal operator as of 2017. Hutchison will provide expert consultative services to reform and improve Ukraine's port industry.
In January 2025, the government of Panama commenced an audit of a local HPH subsidiary and a review of a 2021 concession contract for port operations on the Panama Canal that had been criticized for lacking transparency and generating limited benefits for Panama's economy. In February 2025, a lawsuit was filed in Panama's Supreme Court of Justice seeking to cancel HPH's port operations contract at the Panama Canal.
In March 2025, it is reported that CK Hutchinson Holding would sell HPH and Hutchinson Port Group Holdings. There are reports stating that the key buyer is the Aponte Italian shipping family, and “the crucial figure” is Diego Aponte, group president of Mediterranean Shipping Company, and chairman of the Terminal Investment Limited. TiL and BlackRock are consortium partners in the port deal. According to the New York Times, the Li family felt it was "under political pressure to exit the ports business"; discussions with BlackRock about the Panama Canal had begun only a few weeks prior, coinciding with the beginning of the Trump administration. On 28 March 2025, according to unnamed sources cited by Sing Tao Daily and the South China Morning Post, the deal will not be signed at the expected date after China's market regulator said it will carry out an antitrust review on the deal, but the source added that does not mean the deal has been called off, and April 2 is not a definitive deadline. Chinese state media outlet China Central Television said the deal was "tantamount to handing a knife to an opponent." In May 2025, the state-owned newspaper Ta Kung Pao has condemned the company for ignoring warnings from the central government. The paper accused CK Hutchison of being 'willfully ignorant' and warned that if the company continues down this path, it will face severe consequences.
In July 2025, Panama's government filed two lawsuits against CK Hutchinson's local subsidiary in the country's Supreme Court. In January 2026, the Supreme Court responded by declaring the underlying contracts unconstitutional and void, beginning a transitional period where the key terminals would be managed by APM Terminals Panama, a subsidiary of Maersk.
Associate company
Hutchison Port Holdings Trust
Hutchison Port Holdings Trust is a listed trust in Singapore Exchange. Hutchison Whampoa only owned 25% stake, but had the rights to influence the trust by controlling the key stake of changing the trustee they nominated before the initial public offering.In December 2016 The Trust's subsidiaries and Shenzhen Pingyan Multimodal Company Limited, jointly purchased 80% shares of Huizhou International Container Terminals from Hutchison Port Holdings for US$86.26 million.
In January, 2017 HPH Trust signed a strategic agreement to manage the operations at five terminals, including 16 berths in Kwai Tsing in Hong Kong.
Reuters reported on March 4, 2025 that an investment group backed by BlackRock agreed to spend $22.8 billion to acquire a majority stake in Hong Kong's CK Hutchison Holdings Co., Ltd., which operates ports on both sides of the Panama Canal, giving the United States firm control of major terminals amid pressure from the White House to seize major terminals from China. The sale does not include any interest in Hutchison Ports Holdings Trust, which operates ports in Hong Kong and mainland China.