The French CMA CGM, world number three of container ships, still displays a profit of 6.75 billion euros in the third quarter.
by Jean-Michel Bezat
The party is not quite finished for large contracting holders, but the clouds accumulate on the horizon. After two years marked by a historic flight, freight prices have been collapsed since spring. The decline should continue in the coming months due to the net slowdown in the world economy and trade, and the profits bubble of the Italo-Swiss MSC (unpublished), Danish Maersk, French CMA CGM, Chinese Cosco or German Hapag-Lloyd Deflage with the normalization of the Maritime Transport Market.
It is in this context that CMA CMA CGM, Rodolphe Saadé, presented its financial results in the third quarter on Friday, November 25, which remain at very high levels: the net profit of the world’s number three Containers reached $ 7 billion (6.75 billion euros), close to that of Maersk (8.9 billion), for a turnover of $ 19.9 billion. Profits which are added to the 14.8 billion of the first half and the 17.9 billion made in 2021.
m. Saadé displays his desire to continue his investments to “strengthen [his] positions” and “accelerate [the] energy transition [of his group]”, in particular with the order of ships powered by liquefied natural gas, even methanol. “But we are currently observing a drop in demand, which leads to normalization of international exchanges, and a significant drop in freight rates”, nuances the boss of CMA CGM in a press release.
The composite index of freight rates, calculated by the British firm Drewry, drops indeed from week to week. Even if it is still higher than that of 2019 – $ 1,420 per 40 -foot container (12 meters) – it fell from its peak of 10,377 dollars in September 2021 to 2,591 dollars today. Between Shanghai and Le Havre, it went from $ 15,000 to $ 3,000. Fioul atmosphere at the same time increased by 60 %. This reversal, CMA CGM had anticipated it at the end of 2021. “Visibility is not enormous in our profession, indicated one of the patterns of the group lines. Our fixed costs are high, while our income can fluctuate quickly. “
Acquisition frenzy
The group won more in 2020-2022 than between 1978, the year of its foundation in Marseille, and 2020. Like the whole sector, which has garnered more on this short period than since its birth , at the end of the 1950s, with the invention of the container. According to Drewry, he won $ 7 billion in 2019, 26 billion in 2020 and 210 billion in 2021; He expects 270 billion in 2022. “This is a situation that we only meet once in a life,” confided the boss of the German shipowner Hapag-Lloyd, Rolf Habben Jansen, at the Financial Times, in early September .
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