Global shipping group CMA CGM has completed its purchase of Neptune Orient Lines and has put a new board and management in place.
The NOL board, now chaired by Rodolphe Saadé, on Tuesday named Nicolas Sartini as chief executive officer and Serge Corbel as chief financial officer. Both executives, in addition to leading the global container shipping business, are also executive directors of the newly constituted 10-member NOL board.
The appointments came after the NOL board, which was reconstituted last week after the acquisition was completed, convened on Tuesday.
Saadé, who is also the vice chairman of CMA CGM, succeeds Kwa Chong Seng, who served as chairman of NOL for five years. Kwa will remain an independent director on the board. Sartini takes over from Ng Yat Chung, who was ceo of NOL since 2011. Ng will continue as an executive director on the NOL board and serve as special adviser to the chairman.
On Friday, CMA CGM said it had completed its all-cash voluntary conditional general offer for NOL, after NOL’s majority shareholders tendered all of their shares in acceptance of the offer.
CMA CGM owns about 78 percent of NOL shares and does not intend to preserve the listing status of NOL.
The acquisition comes as part of ongoing consolidation in the ocean freight industry.
In April, CMA CGM said it was forming the Ocean Alliance operational partnership with Cosco Container Lines, Evergreen Lines and Orient Overseas Container Lines. The alliance will boast a fleet of 360 vessels that will operate across 40 shipping lines and offer services on major global shipping routes. It’s expected to be launched in April 2017 following clearance from the regulatory authorities.
CMA CGM, founded and led by Jacques R. Saadé, has 450 vessels that call at more than 400 ports around the world. In 2015, they carried 13 million twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs.
With a presence in 163 countries, through its 426 offices the company employs 22,000 people worldwide, including 2,400 at its headquarters in Marseille.
Headquartered in Singapore, NOL’s container shipping arm, APL, provides container shipping and terminal services, as well as intermodal operations. APL offers transcontinental cargo shipping across Asia, North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and Australia through more than 80 weekly services calling at 160 ports worldwide.
