French line seals investment deal

CMA CGM shipping line’s executive officer, Rodolphe Saadé, has confirmed something he hinted at in an exclusive interview with FTW two weeks ago. This was that the Turkish conglomerate, the Yildirim Group, is to invest the equivalent of R3.5-billion in his family’s troubled boxship giant in return for a 20% stake. He also repeated that the French shipping line was close to finalising a restructuring deal with its banks and that French sovereign fund FSI would take a minority share in the shipping line. Saadé said FSI would invest around R1.05-bn in a deal set to be completed by the end of December. The Saadé family has retained around 80% ownership of the Marseilles-headquartered line following the deal with Yildirim – a similar family-owned shipping group.