The French container ship owner, CMA-CGM, is in advanced talks to offer a way out for La Méridionale, the shipping company that operates freight and passenger services from Marseille to Corsica and Morocco, currently in financial difficulty.
La Méridionale, which operates four ro-pax, notably serving Tanger Med, is the oldest active Marseille shipowner. The financial difficulties and deadlines that have haunted the shipping company in recent years have prompted its owner, Stef, to put it up for sale. According to the French media, the group is in advanced discussions to sell the company’s activities to the world’s third largest shipowner, CMA-CGM.
The Stef group also claimed to have ” started discussions with the CMA-CGM Group concerning the possible resumption of its maritime activities, organized around the company La Méridionale« .
« These discussions, which are currently at a preliminary stage, must be the subject, as required by the procedure, of a priority consultation of the social and economic council (CSE) of La Méridionale which will meet next week.“, underlined the owner of La Méridionale.
It should be recalled that the Stef group had appointed, last January, a new general manager specializing in restructuring to lead the Maritime company. This is Guillaume de Feydeau whose mission was to “build a new strategic plan, in particular for the lines to Morocco which remained below forecasts”.
However, La Marseillaise, which notably operates six weekly crossings from Marseille to Morocco, decided on February 2 to stop the Barcelona-Tangier link with the ship Pelagos, whose last departure dates back to February 9 to refocus on Marseille-Tangier. with the Girolata.
This line, Marseille-Tangier, was launched in December 2020 to provide up to three weekly rotations through two ro-pax, in this case the Girolata, a ship with a capacity of 606 passengers and 230 vehicles. passengers, and the Pelagos which can carry a total of 269 passengers and 75 vehicles. However, this start-up did not escape the repercussions of the pandemic crisis and the service only lasted for five months.
However, La Méridionale decided to relaunch this link, Marseille-Tangier, in February 2022, while the authorization to transport passengers was only granted in April of the same year. This did not prevent the Marseillaise from introducing more crossings, in particular Tangier-Marseille-Barcelona and from including the port of Alicante in Spain as a new stopover dedicated to the transport of certain goods.
That said, with this acquisition, the French shipowner CMA-CGM will set up a new subsidiary in the ro-ro transport of passengers and freight and will mark its return for the first time in ten years in the maritime transport of passengers.
In Morocco, the world’s third-largest shipowner acquired Comanav in 2007 for 200 million euros. He thus became the owner of four ships and four ferries before selling his activities to Comarit for 80 million euros.
The Comarit has also taken on board the four ships it puts into service under the “Comanav Ferry” brand. On the other hand, the company became plagued by the financial difficulties it encountered four years later and was subject to seizures in Morocco, Spain and Italy.