The UK's port industry is divided over the structure the UK's trust ports should take if they were to be privatised.

Speaking at the Waterfront Conference, Investing in the UK Ports Industry, Richard Everitt, CEO of the Port of London Authority and chairman of the UK Major Ports Group, said he would like to see trust ports becoming companies limited by guarantee.

This would mean the liability of members - who would be guarantors rather than shareholders - would be limited to the amount they had committed when the company was wound up.

The companies would also not have share capital.

Debt would be raised as part of the process and paid to the government, Everitt said.

"The objective [of such privatisation] is to get these ports out of the public sector while maintaining their public role," said Everitt.

"The government could receive some proceeds from such a process, as the new companies would raise a sensible level of borrowing, which would be paid to the government.

"In this way, the ports would cease to be part of the public sector but would continue to fulfil their wider public role in an environment which provided long-term stability and accountability.

"It would also create an environment where ports would not be taken over by an entity that was prepared to put up a lot of money on not particularly sensible financial terms."

Everitt said that the standard model of privatisation had not proved durable, with the exception of Forth Ports.

However, James Cooper, director of Prudential M&G's project and infrastructure finance team, which is responsible for monitoring its investment in Associated British Ports (ABP), said ABP was also an example of a successful privatisation using the standard model.

He believed ownership by private investors with long-term vision and deep pockets was the best way to go.

"We are faced with nonsense about having a diversified port ownership structure, but we don't have a diversified retail ownership structure with the state involved in them in any form."

Charles Hammond, CEO of Forth Ports, was also opposed to the companies limited by liability model.

He said: "I think having customers on the board of an organisation like that is the wrong step to take.

"Customer interests are better dealt with in a more transparent fashion."

But Everitt pointed out that customers would not have to be on the board.

The prospect of the privatisation of some of the UK's trust ports was raised in November when the government revealed that it was considering privatising six.

It said several trust ports were developing privatisation plans, with Dover's the most advanced. The others are Tyne, Harwich Haven, Milford Haven, Poole and Shoreham.