plummeting profits for the shipowner CMA-CGM, after the miraculous post-Covid gains

The French shipowner announces poor results for 2023, the third largest maritime freight carrier in the world sees its profits divided by seven over one year.

Its turnover is 43 billion euros for a final profit of 3.4 billion euros in 2023. The French shipowner CMA-CGM even posted a net loss of 90 million euros in the fourth quarter. A first in four years. The carrier has been hit hard by the slowdown in global trade and the return to rates equivalent to the period before the Covid pandemic.

Certainly, the final result remains positive, but it is a real plunge compared to the prosperous period of the recovery of world trade which followed the Covid crisis and which saw transport prices explode, going so far as to create controversy . We remember the 25 billion euros in profits then made by CMA-CGM. And then, the arrival of new boats on this competitive market increased transport capacities, pulling prices down.

Attacks in the Red Sea

To these difficulties, we must add geopolitical problems, notably the situation in the Red Sea. This area which connects the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean (therefore Asia, notably China, to Europe) via the Suez Canal, is still under tension with the Yemeni rebels who are protesting against the Israeli offensive in Gaza and who attack commercial ships transiting through the region.

All global freight transport companies are affected. CMA-CGM is the third and the second, the Danish Maersk, also shows poor performance. As for the first, the Italian-Swiss MSC, it does not publish its results. In any case, the tripling of transport costs does not cover the losses of ships forced to extend their journeys by one to two weeks to bypass the region via southern Africa.

CMA-CGM in full development

The French shipowner is in the process of completing the acquisition of Bolloré Logistics for five billion euros, which will make it the fifth largest logistics company in the world. The logistics branch clearly appears today as a new growth driver for CMA-CGM in the face of the downturn in the maritime trade cycle.