CEVA Logistics and CMA CGM broaden ‘strategic partnership’

CEVA will remain a separate company and acquire CMA CGM’s logistics business, but the French container shipping company is offering to buy the stock of shareholders who want to exit.    CEVA Logistics and the French container shipping company CMA CGM say they will “broaden their strategic partnership.”
   “We are convinced of CEVA Logistics’ potential. This industrial cooperation will make it possible to accelerate its required transformation and to make it a more profitable and efficient leader in logistics for the benefit of its clients, its employees and its shareholders,” said Rodolphe Saadé, CMA CGM’s chief executive officer.
   At the same time, CMA CGM, which already owns 33 percent of CEVA, said it will offer to buy the stock of other CMA CGM shareholders who wish to tender their shares for 30 Swiss francs, thereby matching an offer for CEVA that was made last week by the Danish forwarding company DSV but later withdrawn.
   CEVA said the CMA CGM tender offer will give an option to shareholders “wishing to exit their investment in CEVA,” though it said its board of directors “unanimously believes that the partnership with CMA CGM will provide an attractive value proposition to shareholders in the mid and long term.”
   CEVA had 2017 revenue of nearly $7 billion and was the 10th-largest 3PL in the world, according to the consulting firm Armstrong & Associates. “CEVA Logistics will remain a listed company with an arm’s-length business relationship with CMA CGM,” according to the agreement.
   CEVA said as part of the deal it has “agreed to purchase CMA CGM’s freight management business at a price to be agreed upon” in cash or shares. If an agreement on price can’t be reached, the price will be determined by an independent appraisal.
   CEVA added, “CMA CGM’s freight management business is a highly synergetic addition to CEVA Logistics.”
   Carrying nearly 19 million TEUs of ocean freight last year and with a fleet that has carrying capacity of more than 2.6 million TEU, CMA CGM is the fourth-largest container shipping company in the world. Only Maersk, MSC and COSCO/OOCL are larger.
   At the same time, CMA CGM LOG also is a major player in the logistics business.
   The CMA CGM LOG website says it handles about 450,000 TEUs of cargo, has about 15,200 customers and operates in 74 countries. (The company told American Shipper those numbers need to be updated.) CMA CGM LOG offers a full menu of logistics services: ocean, air and multimodal freight forwarding; customs management; warehousing and distribution; “control tower” services for visibility and control of supply chains; cargo insurance; and services for sensitive cargo and marine logistics for the management of vessels.
   In comparison, CEVA says it handles about 729,000 TEUs of ocean freight, 480,000 tons of air freight and 1.9 million metric tons of ground freight. It operates in 160 countries. CEVA says it has several thousand customers and that its top 30 customers represent about 41 percent of its business, with the largest representing 3.5 percent of revenue. About a third of its revenue comes from customers in the Americas, 40 percent from customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and about 26 percent from customers in the Asia/Pacific region.
   In its prospectus, CEVA listed major vertical markets as providing these percentages of revenue: consumer and retail, 29 percent; automotive, 25 percent; industrial and aerospace, 22 percent; technology 15 percent; healthcare, 5 percent; energy 3 percent; and other, 1 percent.