Compagnie maritime d'affrètement - Compagnie générale maritime, commonly known as CMA CGM is a French shipping and logistics company founded in 1978 by Jacques Saadé.[7] The name is an acronym derived from its two predecessor companies, Compagnie Maritime d'Affrètement (CMA) and Compagnie Générale Maritime (CGM), which translate to "Maritime Freighting Company" and "General Maritime Company", respectively.
Headquartered at the CMA CGM Tower in Marseille, France,[8] the group is the third-largest container shipping company in the world.[9] For the 2024 fiscal year, the company reported an annual revenue of US$55.48 billion.[1]
CMA CGM operations include shipping, port operation, supply chain management, and warehousing. The company has a presence in 160 countries with 400 offices, 750 warehouses, 155,000 employees, and a fleet of 593 vessels. CMA CGM serves 420 of the world's 521 commercial ports and operates 257 shipping lines.[10]
History
The history of CMA CGM can be traced back to the middle of the 19th century, when two major French shipping lines were created, respectively Messageries Maritimes (MM) in 1851 and Compagnie Générale Maritime (CGM) in 1855, soon renamed Compagnie Générale Transatlantique in 1861. Both companies were created partly with the backing of the French State, through the award of mail contracts to various destinations, French colonies and overseas territories as well as foreign countries. After the two World Wars, the two companies became "State owned corporations of the competitive sector" (Entreprise publique du secteur concurrentiel), i.e., companies that, while owned by the State, were run as private for-profit businesses operating in competitive markets. The French government, under President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, progressively merged the two companies between 1974 and 1977 to form Compagnie Générale Maritime, which was still owned by the French government and still run as a competitive business, although sometimes subject to political pressure, for instance on the selection of shipyards to build new ships.
Compagnie Générale Maritime (CGM) operated as such from 1974 to 1996 when it was privatized by the French state under President Chirac and Prime Minister Alain Juppé. During these 22 years it operated freight and container liner services in various global trade lanes, as well as a fleet of dry bulk ships, and a few large oil tankers and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) tankers, with headquarters located in Paris' western suburbs, first in Paris-La Defense, then in close by Suresnes.
The CGM liner services, mostly containerized but also operating a significant fleet of "Con-Ro" vessels able to load roll-on/roll-off cargoes, were re-structured from the two parent companies' main trade lanes, i.e. Western trade lanes (Americas) for Compagnie Générale Transatlantique
Ownership
CMA CGM is 73% owned by Rodolphe Saadé and his family through Merit France SAS. The Turkish family-owned company Yildirim Holding has a 24% stake and French public sector investment bank Bpifrance has a 3% holding.[43][44][45]
Subsidiaries
Maritime activities
- Australian National Line (ANL) (specializes in Australia, New Zealand, Oceania and Asia container transportation)
- Compagnie Marocaine de Navigation (Comanav) (passenger ferry and container services from Morocco to Europe)
- Cheng Lie Navigation Corp. (CNC Line) (specializes in Intra-Asia container transportation)
- Mercosul Line (specializes on the East Coast of South America container transportation)
- Containerships (specializes in Intra-European container transportation)
- American President Lines (APL) (Singapore-based container line)
Terminal activities
- CMA Terminals Holding
Joint ventures
- CMA Systems, a business entity in partnership with IBM involving development of new technologies like the cloud computing.[47]
- Terminal Link, a joint venture between CMA CGM (51%) and China Merchants Port (49%).
- 5-year partnership with startup Mistral AI beginning in 2025 and focusing on artificial intelligence initiatives for customer service in shipping and logistics and factchecking for CMA CGM's media businesses. As part of the deal, CMA CGM will invest up to €100 million with Mistral.[48]
Fleet
In 2023, CMA CGM's fleet included:
The fleet has 200 maritime services and calls at more than 420 ports in 160 countries. There are 521 commercial ports in the world at the moment. Some emblematic group's vessels are:
- 593 vessels
- 4,500,000 container TEUs
- 600,000 reefer container TEUs
- CMA CGM Jules Verne (16,020 TEUs) was christened in June 2013 by the French President François Hollande. At that time, this vessel sailing under the French flag was the world's biggest container ship.
- CMA CGM Marco Polo (16,020 TEUs)
- CMA CGM Alexander von Humboldt (16,020 TEUs)
- CMA CGM Kerguelen (18,000 TEUs)
- CMA CGM Vasco de Gama (18,000 TEUs)
- CMA CGM Bougainville (18,000 TEUs)
- CMA CGM Georg Forster (18,000 TEUs)
Sponsoring
Since 2022, CMA CGM is the main sponsor of Olympique Marseille, the major football club of the city where the company is headquartered.[65]
In July 2025, CMA CGM became the co-title sponsor of the Decathlon cycling team. The team will compete as Decathlon–CMA CGM from 1 January 2026.[66]
Accidents and incidents
On April 4, 2008, pirates seized the CMA CGM luxury cruise ship Le Ponant off the coast of Somalia.[67]
CMA CGM and its affiliates have been implicated in various arms-shipping incidents.
As a result of CMA CGM's involvement in Iranian weapons smuggling, US congressmen have called on CMA CGM to be investigated and urged the US Treasury Department to consider levying sanctions against the shipper.[75] The company has since implemented tighter procedures for accepting shipments bound for Iran,[76] including scanning all containers destined for the country.[77] CMA CGM has also ceased exporting from Iranian ports since November 2011.[77]
See also
External links
References
- 2024 annual financial results CMA CGM, retrieved 28 February 2025^
- Consolidated Financial Statements. Year ended December 31, 2021 CMA CGM, retrieved 8 March 2022^
- CMA CGM Group – About us, “the Group employs 160,000 people worldwide, of which 6,000 in Marseille where its head office is located.” (2024)^