CMA CGM denies getting offer for Delmas
CMA CGM has flatly denied having received an offer for its African liner subsidiary Delmas from former owner Bolloré.
The group was responding to French press reports that Bolloré was looking to take advantage of CMA CGM’s financial difficulties to buy back the shipping company.
According to one report, Bolloré chairman Vincent Bolloré lunched recently with CMA CGM chairman Jacques Saadé to discuss unspecified affairs of common concern.
This has not been confirmed by CMA CGM but, in a note to personnel, the group said that it had received no offer from Bolloré for Delmas.
It added that Delmas was not among the assets which the group was looking to sell as part of its attempt to improve its financial situation.
This is doubtless all the more the case for the fact that the African lines operated by Delmas, along with those serving South America, have returned relatively good results in recent months, enabling the group to limit the damage caused by the economic crisis on major east-west routes.
There was no official response yesterday from Bolloré to reports that it has made a number of approaches to CMA CGM with a view to buying back Delmas, which it sold to the shipping group in January 2006.
Sources close to the group indicated, however, that the logic which had led it to sell Delmas in 2006 still held good.
The company had been too small to survive at international level and would have required massive investment, which the Bolloré group made clear it was not ready to make, to attain viability.
Bolloré nevertheless remains a commercial partner of CMA CGM in Africa, notably in the ports where, in line with a 10-year agreement concluded at the time of the sale of Delmas, it remains the group’s official cargo-handler.
The French government is looking for solutions to CMA CGM’s financial difficulties. Talks are in progress with the group’s banks on a restructuring of its €5.5bn ($8.1bn) debt but the group is also understood to be looking for fresh capital.
This could come from the sovereign fund set up by the French government to provide additional funding for companies considered strategically important to the French economy but could also be provided by “partners” like Bolloré.
The group was responding to French press reports that Bolloré was looking to take advantage of CMA CGM’s financial difficulties to buy back the shipping company.
According to one report, Bolloré chairman Vincent Bolloré lunched recently with CMA CGM chairman Jacques Saadé to discuss unspecified affairs of common concern.
This has not been confirmed by CMA CGM but, in a note to personnel, the group said that it had received no offer from Bolloré for Delmas.
It added that Delmas was not among the assets which the group was looking to sell as part of its attempt to improve its financial situation.
This is doubtless all the more the case for the fact that the African lines operated by Delmas, along with those serving South America, have returned relatively good results in recent months, enabling the group to limit the damage caused by the economic crisis on major east-west routes.
There was no official response yesterday from Bolloré to reports that it has made a number of approaches to CMA CGM with a view to buying back Delmas, which it sold to the shipping group in January 2006.
Sources close to the group indicated, however, that the logic which had led it to sell Delmas in 2006 still held good.
The company had been too small to survive at international level and would have required massive investment, which the Bolloré group made clear it was not ready to make, to attain viability.
Bolloré nevertheless remains a commercial partner of CMA CGM in Africa, notably in the ports where, in line with a 10-year agreement concluded at the time of the sale of Delmas, it remains the group’s official cargo-handler.
The French government is looking for solutions to CMA CGM’s financial difficulties. Talks are in progress with the group’s banks on a restructuring of its €5.5bn ($8.1bn) debt but the group is also understood to be looking for fresh capital.
This could come from the sovereign fund set up by the French government to provide additional funding for companies considered strategically important to the French economy but could also be provided by “partners” like Bolloré.