2024-03-15 17:55:31
In Marseille, it is sometimes said that three things matter in the city: its port, naturally, its football team, obviously, and its newspaper as a complement. And at 54, Rodolphe Saadé, the owner of CMA-CGM, one of the three largest maritime freight companies in the world, has marbles, if not the whole bag, in each of these Marseille institutions .
From there to making him the most powerful man in the city, there is only one step. But the man with his mind turned to the sea clearly intends to further expand his horizons. He announced this Friday morning that he had concluded a promise to purchase the Altice group with its owner Patrick Drahi. Thus, it adds “BFM TV” and “RMC” to the media portfolio of CMA-CGM, already owner of Provence and of The Tribune.
Since the creation of his company founded in a hangar in Marseille in 1976 by his father, a Lebanese refugee, with the help of Jacques Chirac until his recent and thunderous irruption into the media game, 20 Minutes takes stock of a discreet vessel but no less a flagship of the French economy.
American success in Marseille
Jacques Saadé was not quite 40 years old when he arrived in Marseille in 1978 from his native Lebanon, driven out by the civil war raging there. His son Rodolphe was then eight years old. And man has resources and experience. His family had already had to hastily leave Syria in the 1960s and its tobacco, cotton and oil factory when the Baathist party nationalizes entire sections of its economy. But Jacques Saadé nonetheless benefited from a high-level education: he graduated in 1957 from the prestigious LSE (London school of economics) and learned about maritime transport during an internship in New York, then at the doors of a revolution: the container, a simple steel box until now only used by the US army.
The sequel has everything (or almost) an American success story: A hangar in the port, four employees, a ship which ensures the transport of goods between Marseille and Beirut via the ports of Livorno, in Italy, and Latakia , in Syria. A second ship, then others and new lines and employees. The CMA-CGM currently lines 620 boats, serves more than 400 ports on five continents for a turnover of 47 billion dollars in 2023.
A helping hand from Jacques Chirac (and from destiny)
In this dizzying rise driven by an intensification of international trade in goods where maritime freight, with 90% of the volumes transported, has taken the lion’s share, the CMA-CGM has been able to count on the benevolence of a young president of the Republic in the person of Jacques Chirac. We are in 1996 and the company which was then only named CMA and is only a good Mediterranean player bought for 20 million francs the Compagnie Générale Maritime (CGM), a public carrier ensuring the traffic of goods between the Antilles and The city. “Jacques Chirac, great friend of the Lebanese Prime Minister at the time, Rafic Hariri, weighed in favor of the Saade, against the advice of the Minister of Finance at the time, Jean Arthuis”, remember The world in 2005.
The operation looked like a big deal: the CGM had just been recapitalized to the tune of 900 million francs and would give rise to a fratricidal conflict between Jacques Saadé and his brother Johnny.
Addressing the Good Mother on familiar terms
The family business then began to take on the appearance of an empire and launched the construction of its headquarters: a 143 meter high business tower, the first of its kind in Marseille. A construction which stands out in the Marseille landscape and which is accompanied by a pleasant story to tell: At the time of submitting the building permits, the mayor of Marseille at the time Jean-Claude Gaudin would have expressly requested that this tower does not exceed the Good Mother, which has surveyed the city for one hundred and fifty years from the height of its 154 meters.
Inaugurated in 2011, the tower has since been joined by a large neighbor on Boulevard Jacques Saadé which runs along the port before directing motorists into the tunnel under the Old Port. A boulevard named in 2019 in homage to the Marseille businessman, who died in 2018.
Concentration and diversification – the windfall of Covid-19
The CMA-CGM has since continued to increase its activities. The company multiplies the acquisitions of maritime freight companies until it establishes itself as the third carrier in the world. It is also diversifying its activity by launching in February 2021 a new division specializing in air freight.
Because the passage of Covid-19, which brought commerce to a halt for a handful of long months, reshuffled a few cards and the subsequent recovery allowed historic profits: in 2022 the CMA-CGM records a net profit of more than 23 billion euros (compared to $388 million between July and September 2023) to make his CAC40 colleagues pale. A war chest that the company is using to accelerate its concentration and diversification.
Will to power and soft power
By concentrating its freight transport activities still, with the acquisition of a port terminal in New York, after having acquired in January 2022 a terminal in Los Angeles for 2 billion euros or the acquisition of Bolloré Logistics in 2023 for 5 billion euros. But by also diversifying them towards what is more akin to being a desire to soft power by bursting into the game medias.
As a good Marseillais, it is Provence which was first bought in 2022 under the nose of Xavier Niel, owner among others of the neighbors of nice morning. 2023 is the year of the takeover of the economic weekly The Tribune and that of the acquisition of 8% of the capital of the M6 group. This month of March therefore completes, for the time being, this rise in the world of press and television with the announcement of the takeover of Altice (“BFM TV”, “RMC”…) for 1.55 billion euros.
This media strategy is accompanied by a more modest influence in Olympique de Marseille becoming its main sponsor since this season and appearing on the jerseys.
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