French shipping giant CMA CGM announced Wednesday that it has finalized the purchase from the Stef refrigerated transport group of La Méridionale. This will be integrated into a new division with the group's participation in Brittany Ferries and the transport of cars by boat. CMA-CGM has recently increased its purchasing in transport and media. La Méridionale, which owns four ships carrying goods and passengers, operates as part of a public service delegation between Marseille, Ajaccio and Porto-Vecchio in Corsica, with a 10% market share to the island, as well as between Marseille and Tangier in Morocco. No amount was disclosed.
Loss-making since 2019, La Méridionale employs 600 people, including 500 seafarers. "We are now launching a call for tenders for the construction of two ro-pax ships (freight and passengers) to serve Corsica," said its new boss Jean-Emmanuel Sauvée.
Ships "very virtuous from an environmental point of view"
According to him, these ships will be "very virtuous from an environmental point of view, (...) with a very interesting propulsion system (LNG and able to run on e-methane, a synthetic methane, editor's note) and zero emissions during stopovers". "The internationalization of La Méridionale has not been successful at this stage. It's up to us to imagine a new project (...) to rethink destinations to Morocco," he noted. La Méridionale will be attached within CMA CGM to a new division called "specialized maritime transport", and headed by Jean-Emmanuel Sauvée, with the 12% of the group in the Breton company Brittany Ferries and its 35% in the Nantes start-up Neoline which develops a sailing freighter.
This division will also include the new boat transport business created from Gefco, a specialist in automotive logistics acquired last year. "This is a new market in France that we are creating. (...) There had been no shipowner for twenty years in this sector, "said Jean-Emmanuel Sauvée.