CMA CGM acquires La Méridionale and creates a center for “specialized maritime transport”

The French maritime giant CMA CGM announced on Wednesday that it has finalized the purchase from the refrigerated transport group Stef of the company La Méridionale. This will be integrated into a new division with the group's participation in Brittany Ferries and car transport by boat. CMA-CGM has recently multiplied purchases in transport and media. La Méridionale, which has four ships transporting goods and passengers, provides rotations 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", indicated its new boss Jean-Emmanuel Sauvée.

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 the destinations to Morocco", he noted. La Méridionale will be attached within CMA CGM to a new division called "specialized maritime transport", and managed by Jean-Emmanuel Sauvée, with the 12% of the group in the Breton company Brittany Ferries and its 35% in the start-up from Nantes, Neoline, which is developing a sailing freighter.

This division will also include the new activity of car transport by boat created from Gefco, a specialist in car logistics acquired last year. “We are creating a new market in France. (…) There had been no shipowner for twenty years in this sector”, noted Jean-Emmanuel Sauvée.