This is one of the largest profits ever recorded by a French company, in a context of rising maritime freight prices during the Covid-19 crisis.
This is almost unheard of in the history of French companies. The shipowner CMA-CGM recorded in 2022 a record net profit of more than 23 billion euros, signing the highest profit published by a French company last year, ahead of those of TotalEnergies, Stellantis and LVMH.
The world’s third largest shipowner has been driven by historically high maritime freight prices since the start of the pandemic. In 2022, the turnover of CMA-CGM, not listed on the stock exchange, increased by 33.1% year on year, to 74.5 billion dollars (about 70.1 billion euros).
While presenting these historical results, the group’s management insisted that they remain “exceptional” and will not last, in a clear desire to avoid a relaunch of the debate on “surplus profits” which had marked the summer of 2022 in France. The overheating of shipping is now over, she insisted. CMA-CGM assured that it was reinvesting “nearly 90% of the profits” made in 2022, including two billion euros in France. 726 million euros were also redistributed to the group’s 155,000 employees.
An effective tax rate of 2% in 2021
The shipowner, like its competitors in the European Union, is subject to a “tonnage tax”, which relates to the capacities of its fleet, and not to its profits, and to corporation tax for the port and logistic. Its effective tax rate was 2% in 2021, according to a National Assembly mission on windfall profits.
CMA-CGM is preparing for new upheavals in sea freight by diversifying into land, air, space and media logistics. The shipowner entered the capital of Air France-KLM and Eutelsat in 2022 and acquired the vehicle carrier Gefco, as well as companies in e-commerce logistics.
He bought the pillar of the local press Provence, took a minority stake in the M6 group and will become the main sponsor of Olympique de Marseille this summer. The group will also invest 1.5 billion euros over five years to create a fund responsible for accelerating the energy transition in all transport activities.