CMA CGM
Encyclopedia
CMA CGM S.A. is a French container
transportation and shipping company, headed by Jacques Saadé
. It is the third largest container company in the world, using 200 shipping routes between 400 ports in 150 different countries. Its headquarters are in Marseille
, and its North American headquarters are in Norfolk, Virginia
, USA.
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 Compagnie Générale Transatlantique
in 1861. The two companies merged to form Compagnie Générale Maritime in 1973 as a French state-run entity.
Jacques Saadé
created CMA in 1978 as an intra-Mediterranean liner service. In 1996, CGM was privatized and sold to Compagnie Maritime d'Affrètement (CMA) to form CMA CGM.
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 Swiss Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A.
.
" off the coast of Somalia.
As a result of CMA CGM's involvement in Iranian weapons smuggling, U.S. congressmen have called on CMA CGM to be investigated and urged the U.S. Treasury Department to consider levying sanctions against the shipper.
Containerization
Containerization is a system of freight transport based on a range of steel intermodal containers...
transportation and shipping company, headed by Jacques Saadé
Jacques Saadé
- Biographie :Jacques R. Saadé was born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1937. He is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CMA CGM.Graduated from the London School of Economics in 1957, he took over the family business in 1958 at his father’s death...
. It is the third largest container company in the world, using 200 shipping routes between 400 ports in 150 different countries. Its headquarters are in Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
, and its North American headquarters are in Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....
, USA.
History
Compagnie Générale Transatlantique
The Compagnie Générale Transatlantique , typically known overseas as the French Line, was a shipping company established during 1861 as an attempt to revive the French merchant marine, the poor state of which was indicated during the Crimean War of 1856...
in 1861. The two companies merged to form Compagnie Générale Maritime in 1973 as a French state-run entity.
Jacques Saadé
Jacques Saadé
- Biographie :Jacques R. Saadé was born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1937. He is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CMA CGM.Graduated from the London School of Economics in 1957, he took over the family business in 1958 at his father’s death...
created CMA in 1978 as an intra-Mediterranean liner service. In 1996, CGM was privatized and sold to Compagnie Maritime d'Affrètement (CMA) to form CMA CGM.
In 1998 the combined company purchased Australian National Lines
Australian National Lines
The Australian National Line was an Australian Government owned overseas and coastal shipping line that operated in Australia between 1956 and 1998, when the container shipping operations and naming rights were bought by French shipping line CMA CGM....
(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.
Le Havre
Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total...
from the Bolloré
Bolloré
Bolloré is a French investment and industrial holding group headquartered in Puteaux, on the western outskirts of Paris, France. The company, a paper-energy-plantations-logistics conglomerate, employs 28,000 people around the world....
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
A.P. Moller-Maersk Group
A.P. Moller – Maersk Group , also known as Maersk , is a Danish business conglomerate. A.P. Moller – Maersk Group has activities in a variety of business sectors, primarily within the transportation and energy sectors. It is the largest container ship operator and supply vessel operator in the...
and the Swiss Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A.
Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A.
Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A. is the world's largest shipping line in terms of container vessel capacity. MSC operates 469 vessels and has a capacity of...
.
Piracy
On April 4, 2008, pirates seized the CMA CGM luxury cruise ship "Le PonantLe Ponant
Le Ponant is a three-masted, commercially operated French luxury yacht owned by CMA CGM and operated under their Compagnie du Ponant brand. The ship carries up to 67 passengers in 32 cabins...
" off the coast of Somalia.
Arms shipments
CMA CGM and its affiliates have been implicated in various arms shipping incidents:- March 2011: Israeli forces intercepted the vessel Victoria in international watersInternational watersThe terms international waters or trans-boundary waters apply where any of the following types of bodies of water transcend international boundaries: oceans, large marine ecosystems, enclosed or semi-enclosed regional seas and estuaries, rivers, lakes, groundwater systems , and wetlands.Oceans,...
in the Mediterranean SeaMediterranean SeaThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
, stating that it was carrying weapons by Iran via Syria. According to Israeli officials, the arms shipments included “roughly 2,500 mortar shells, nearly 75,000 bullets and six C-704C-704The C-704 is a Chinese anti-ship missile. The missile was developed by the third research institute of the Chinese Aerospace Group, also the manufacturer of the C-701.-Design:...
anti-ship missiles.” Israel says the ultimate destination of the cargo was for the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. CMA CGM, which chartered the vessel, stated, "The ship's manifests do not show any cargo in contravention [of] international regulations, and we do not have any more information at this stage." - October 2010: Nigerian authorities seized 13 shipping containers carrying illegal Iranian weaponry at Lagos’ Apapa PortApapaApapa is the major port of the city of Lagos, Nigeria, and is located to the west of Lagos Island, across Lagos Harbour. It is also one of Nigeria's 774 Local Government Areas.- Overview :...
. The containers included 107 mm artillery rockets (Katyushas), explosives and rifle ammunition. The arms were to be shipped next to The GambiaThe GambiaThe Republic of The Gambia, commonly referred to as The Gambia, or Gambia , is a country in West Africa. Gambia is the smallest country on mainland Africa, surrounded by Senegal except for a short coastline on the Atlantic Ocean in the west....
, with the final destination of the cargo possibly the Gaza StripGaza Stripthumb|Gaza city skylineThe Gaza Strip lies on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Strip borders Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the south, east and north. It is about long, and between 6 and 12 kilometres wide, with a total area of...
. The MV CMA CGM Everest originally picked up the containers from the Iranian port of Bandar AbbasBandar AbbasBandar-Abbas or Bandar-e ‘Abbās , also Romanized as Bandar ‘Abbās, Bandar ‘Abbāsī, and Bandar-e ‘Abbās; formerly known as Cambarão and Port Comorão to Portuguese traders, as Gombroon to English traders and as Gamrun or Gumrun to Dutch merchants) is a port city and capital of Hormozgān Province on...
. CMA CGM says it was victim of a false cargo declaration, claiming the weapons were shipped in packages labeled as "glass wool and pallets of stone" and that the Iranian shipper "does not appear on any forbidden persons listing." - November 2009: South Africa seized arms traveling from North Korea by way of China. The seizure amounted to two containers filled with tank parts and other military equipment from North Korea, which included “gun sights, tracks and other spare parts for T-54 and T-55 tanks and other war material valued at an estimated $750,000.” The military equipment was concealed in containers lined with sacks of rice and shipping documents identified the cargo as spare parts for a “bulldozer.” According to the report, the containers were originally loaded in Dalian, China onto the CMA CGM Musca, a UK-flagged container ship. The shipment was reportedly destined for Point Noire in the Republic of Congo.
- July 2009: The United Arab EmiratesUnited Arab EmiratesThe United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...
seized a shipment of weapons from North KoreaNorth KoreaThe Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
destined for Iran. The shipment was made in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1874, which bans all North Korean Arms exports. The weapons, which included RPGs, detonators, ammunition, and rocket propellant, were shipped by a Bahamian-flagged vessel of ANL Australia, a wholly owned subsidiary of CMA CGM.
As a result of CMA CGM's involvement in Iranian weapons smuggling, U.S. congressmen have called on CMA CGM to be investigated and urged the U.S. Treasury Department to consider levying sanctions against the shipper.
| CMA CGM 2008 | |
|---|---|
| Total Revenue | USD 15,1 billions |
| Number of containers carried | 8.9 million teus* |
| Total fleet vessel | 384 |
| Total fleet capacity | 1.1 million teus* |
| Staff Worldwide | 17,000 employees |
| Staff in France | 4,200 employees |
| World ranking | 3rd |
Subsidiaries
- Terminal Link - Container Terminals developer and operator, ranked N°12 worldwide
- 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 LinesAustralian National LinesThe Australian National Line was an Australian Government owned overseas and coastal shipping line that operated in Australia between 1956 and 1998, when the container shipping operations and naming rights were bought by French shipping line CMA CGM....
ANL (Oceania, Asia, Europe & US trades) - COMANAV (Passenger ferry and container services from Morocco to Europe)
- MacAndrews (Iberian Peninsula shipping and travel industry services)
- DelmasDelmas (shipping company)Delmas Shipping, based in Le Havre, France, is a containerized-freight and ro-ro shipping company, mainly carrying trade between western Europe and Africa...
(Container and RoRo line) - OT Africa LineOT Africa LineOT Africa Line is a specialist shipping line exclusively serving routes between Europe and West Africa. OTAL work exclusively in the transportation industry, operating a line of container and RoRo vessels...
(West Africa container line) - CMA CGM Croisières & Tourisme
- Yacht luxury cruises (64-passenger Ponant, 90-passenger Levant, and 226-passenger Diamant)
- Trips onboard container carriers
- Compagnie du PonantCompagnie du PonantCompagnie du Ponant is a French cruise line company. It launched the first French cruise ship. It was founded in April 1988 by Philippe Videau and Jean-Emmanuel Saved, and other officers of the French Merchant Navy...
(leading French-flagged cruise company) - Tapis Rouge International (luxury travel tour operator)
- CMA Ships (a wholly owned subsidiary managing all fleet-related operations)
- Cheng-Lie Navigation Co. Ltd (Intra-Asia Container Line based at TaiwanTaiwanTaiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
)
Maritime Lines
- ECS (Europe Caribbean Service)
- ACSA (Asia Latin America)
- FAL (Europe Far East Service)
- NAF (North Africa Service)
- SAMWAF (Latin America West Africa)