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After transporting bulk for more than a century, the family group delivers sections of Airbus, lays cables and maintains wind turbines at sea. An incredible conversion.
By André Trentin
© Baptiste Roman/Hans Lucas via AFP
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“SIf we had remained in the bulk, we would have become dwarfs against the Chinese and the Greeks. When, in 1996, Philippe Louis-Dreyfus took over the management of the armaments branch which then belonged to the Louis Dreyfus group, one of the big names in the world trade in raw materials, his opinion was made up: he would come out of the bulk. Because too unpredictable, too speculative.
Louis Dreyfus Armateurs (LDA), it is then about fifty boats, from capesize (180,000 tons) to handysize (35,000 tons) which, overflowing with coal, iron ore, soybeans, wheat, cross the seas of the globe according to the freight rates of the Baltic Exchange in London.
In 1996 precisely, these prices were at their lowest. From there, the idea of a total reconversion which was completed in July, last year, by the…