<\/p>\n
CMA CGM expects its profit to ease further for the rest of the year after a first-quarter decline, as an uncertain economy and influx of new vessels cool the container shipping market after a record 2022.<\/p>\n
The company, based in Marseille and privately controlled by the founding Saade family, on Friday reported a first-quarter net profit of $2.0 billion, compared with $7.2 billion in the year-earlier period, and said in a statement it expects the first quarter to be its most profitable of 2023.<\/p>\n
CMA CGM is among shipping firms to have posted record profits last year, after the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a rush in maritime transport, and the group has poured its earnings into acquisitions to expand its logistics business and enter the media industry.<\/p>\n
In a separate announcement on Friday, CMA CGM said it had offered to buy French online business newspaper La Tribune.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, CMA CGM agreed to buy the logistics operations of family-run conglomerate Bollore for an enterprise value of 5 billion euros ($5.5 billion) in what will be its biggest-ever deal if completed.<\/p>\n
Integrating its acquisitions was the priority for CMA CGM, though it had “significant financial room for manoeuvre” with liquidity of around $25 billion that was above its debt level, Chief Financial Officer Ramon Fernandez told reporters during a call.<\/p>\n
An expected increase of 8% in global shipping capacity, compared with forecast growth in global trade of just 1.5%, for this year would maintain pressure on freight rates, he said.<\/p>\n
However, CMA CGM was seeing a recovery in its maritime volumes after a 5% year on year fall in the first quarter, and expects volume growth over the full year, said Fernandez, who joined CMA CGM this year from telecoms group Orange.<\/p>\n
The group’s recently established air cargo division saw a slow start to the year as demand softened following a surge during the pandemic, but CMA CGM aims to use its joint venture with Air France-KLM and the planned takeover of Bollore Logistics to boost the business, Fernandez added.<\/p>\n
($1 = 0.9084 euros)<\/em><\/p>\n (Reuters – Reporting by Gus Trompiz, Editing by Louise Heavens)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n maritime professional<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CMA CGM expects its profit to ease further for the rest of the year after a first-quarter decline, as an uncertain economy and influx of new vessels cool the container shipping market after a record 2022. The company, based in Marseille and privately controlled by the founding Saade family, on Friday reported a first-quarter net …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maritime-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/33868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}