CMA CGM

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CMA CGM S.A. is a French container transportation and shipping company, headed by Mr. Jacques R. Saadé. It is the largest container shipping company in France and the third largest container company in the world, using 76 major shipping routes between 216 ports in 126 different countries.^[1]

North American headquarters are based in Norfolk, Virginia, USA.

Containership "CMA CGM Balzac" @ container terminal Zeebrugge, Bruges, Belgium

1 History
2 Subsidiaries
3 Maritime Lines
4 External links and references

[edit] History

The history of CMA CGM can be traced back to 1851 when Messageries Maritimes (MM) was established. Another component company, Compagnie Générale Maritime (CGM), was founded in 1855 and renamed as Compagnie Générale Transatlantique in 1861. The two companies merged to form Compagnie Générale Maritime in 1973 as a French state-run entity.

The brothers Jacques Saadé and Johnny Saadé, from Lebanon, created CMA in 1977 as an intra-Mediterranean liner service. In 1996, CGM was privatized and sold to Compagnie Maritime d'Affrètement (CMA) to form CMA CGM. The buyout was contested for its low price of 3 M€ by Johnny Saadé, leading to legal disputes between the brothers and eventually the exclusion of the latter.^[2]

In 1998 the combined company purchased Australian National Lines (ANL). The company is still growing and has ordered 58 new vessels (owned outright or on long-term leases) to be delivered over the next four years.

CMA CGM acquired its French rival Delmas based in Le Havre from the Bolloré group in September 2005 for 600 million Euros. The acquisition was completed in early January 5, 2006. The resulting corporation became the third largest container company in the world behind the Danish A.P. Moller-Maersk Group and the Italian Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A..^[3]

On April 4, 2008, pirates seized the CMA CGM luxury cruise ship "Le Ponant" off the coast of Somalia.

Key figures^[4] (*teus : twenty equivalent unit)
	CMA CGM 2004	Delmas 2004	2004 Total	2005 pro forma
Total Revenue	4 billion €	900 million €	4.9 billion €	5.95 billion €
Number of containers carried	3.9 million teus*	520 000 teus*	4.42 million teus*	5.2 million teus*
Total fleet vessel	195	51	246	242
Slot capacity	427,000 teus*	57,000 teus*	484,000 teus*	507,500 teus*
Staff Worldwide	9,000 employees	1,100 employees	10,100 employees	10,000 employees
Staff in France (sedentary + seafarers)	3,300 employees	600 employees	3,900 employees	4,000 employees
World ranking	4th	24th	3rd	3rd

[edit] Subsidiaries

Rail Link (multimodal rail-bound transport solutions)
River Shuttle Containers (Rhône – Saône axis containerised river transportation)
CMA CGM Logistics (purchase to delivery global carrier)
Qualitair & Sea (custom engineering air freight logistics)
Progeco (container: sales, leasing & repairing)
Australian National Lines ANL (Oceania, Asia, Europe & US trades)
COMANAV (Passenger ferry and container services from Morocco to Europe)
MacAndrews (Iberian Peninsula shipping and travel industry services)
CMA CGM Croisières & Tourisme
- Yacht luxury cruises (64-passenger Ponant, 90-passenger Levant, and 226-passenger Diamant)
- Trips onboard container carriers
Compagnie des Îles du Ponant (leading French-flagged cruise company)
Tapis Rouge International (luxury travel tour operator)
CMA Ships (a wholly owned subsidiary managing all fleet-related operations)