Marseille, September 2. Diving for three days in the Phocaean city, Emmanuel Macron goes to the Zaha Hadid tower, named after the Iraqi-British architect who signed the headquarters of the shipowner CMA-CGM. The President of the Republic could not miss a visit to the smoked glass and steel skyscraper which dominates the port of Joliette and the harbor.
CEO since 2017 of the company founded by his father Jacques Saadé, Rodolphe Saadé takes him to the navigation center. It is in this secure room, on the twelfth floor of the tower, that eight merchant navy commanders optimize and secure 24 hours a day, alternating with the officers of the fleet center from Singapore and Miami, the trajectory of some 550 CMA-CGM ships plying the maritime routes of the world.
Who would have thought that by disembarking in Marseilles in 1978, fleeing the war in Lebanon, Jacques Saadé would build an empire from the Compagnie Maritime d’Entreprise (CMA), which initially operated only one ship for one? line, Marseille-Beirut? A glance at the planisphere occupying an entire wall of the room, where thousands of light points represent container ships, tankers, LNG carriers or bulk carriers, is enough to convince oneself that the shipping started again, once the first wave of Covid-19 in spring 2020 has passed.
Unexpected Manna
After the merger with the Compagnie Générale Maritime, bought for nothing in 1999, CMA-CGM has established itself as the world’s third largest container shipowner, behind the Danish AP Moller-Maersk and the Italian-Swiss MSC, at the elbow to elbow with the Chinese Cosco. Then as a middleweight in logistics after the acquisition of Singaporean APL in 2016 and Swiss Ceva Logistics in 2019.
The family group, which almost collapsed in 2009, remains weighted with a debt of $ 14.9 billion (about 13 billion euros). But he has never seen such a flourishing business or such a high profit. It was multiplied by twenty-five in the second quarter (to 3.48 billion dollars), after an already prosperous January-March period (2 billion), and the second half still promises to be very profitable. These profits are mainly explained by the shortage of containers and ships, which has led to a surge in freight rates since the summer of 2020, which have sometimes doubled – or even more on certain spot contracts.
This windfall, unexpected before the start of the pandemic, allows it to strengthen its fleet and its capacity in TEU containers (equivalent to 20 feet, or 38.5 m3). An emergency to respond to the increase in demand linked to the resumption of trade in manufactured products and consumer goods. In April, the shipowner ordered 22 medium-capacity container ships from Chinese shipyards, twelve of which run on liquefied natural gas, which emit less CO2 than ships powered by heavy fuel oil. And he signed, on November 9, a “Strategic and industrial partnership” with Engie to jointly develop research and production of carbon-free fuels for its fleet.
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