MSC in the news, surprisingly

MSC in the news, surprisingly    For a company that likes to keep a low profile, the past week has been a rather public one for Geneva-based liner carrier Mediterranean Shipping Co.
   On Sunday, London's Financial Times reported that MSC Chief Executive Gianluigi Aponte was pinning rate volatility in ocean freight rates on shippers. He also refuted claims that MSC had cut rates at the beginning of 2009 to chase market share.
   'Shippers are not that deep,' Aponte said, accusing shippers of taking advantage of the overcapacity situation in market in 2009. 'They worry always who will ship for $50 less. The shippers are concerned solely by the price.'
   MSC overwhelmingly works on a wholesale model in which it deals primarily with freight forwarders. Yet the notion in the market is that MSC started the race to the bottom on rates in the Asia/Europe trade, where base rates infamously plummeted to near zero in the first quarter of 2009. It’s a notion that a handful of shippers told American Shipper in the early months of 2009, yet it’s a notion Aponte strenuously denied.
   'It would have been crass and irresponsible for a company in our business to lower the rates,' he told the Financial Times.

Aponte

   Aponte, however, did suggest the major container lines would be able to reverse huge losses in 2009 with profits in 2010 and that the major lines would fare better in the long run.
   “I think that the big operators will come out very strong,' he said. 'We will all recover our losses in 2010.'
   As a privately held company, MSC has no obligation to release information about its 2009 financial results.
   Aponte’s comments follow on the heels of a stunning riposte by MSC Far East Trade Manager Caroline Becquart at last week's Trans-Pacific Maritime conference, held in Long Beach by the Journal of Commerce.
   During a panel in which shippers lambasted carriers for raising rates while slashing capacity and slowing service speeds, Becquart said she was 'offended by what has been said about carriers.'
   Prompted to defend the carrier industry by the panel's moderator, maritime consultant Barry Horowitz, Becquart laid into shippers for not fully understanding the shipping business and not comprehending how difficult it was for carriers to sell space. She also emphasized that it was the carriers' right to remove capacity at any time.
   For a handful of lines, having two newsmakers in one week would be nothing out of the ordinary. But for the notoriously private MSC, it was a particularly newsworthy week. ' Eric Johnson