Bolloré Africa logistic has officially become Africa Global Logistic, branch of the Italian-Swiss shipowner MSC. This was reported by Radio France Internationale (RFI). Last December, Vincent Bolloré’s group sold its logistics assets in Africa, supplied by its subsidiary Bolloré Africa Logistics, to MSC for the sum of 5.7 billion euros.
Symbol of the French presence in Africa, the African logistics branch of the Bolloré group is now entirely under the MSC banner: the Bolloré name will disappear from the 250 agencies, 22 port and railway concessions, 66 dry ports and two river terminals. This large contract reflects the movement of concentration in Africa in the handling and transport sector and allows MSC to have a sizable presence along the West African coast, with container terminals, road terminals, railway lines and a dense network of warehouses and trade: the Italian-Swiss shipowner thus becomes the second player in Africa behind another shipping bigwig, Maersk and its logistics subsidiary Ap Moller.
Bolloré Africa logistic has also been at the center of the corruption scandals in Togo and Guinea, for which the group agreed in 2021 to pay a fine of 12 million euros to the French justice and to be followed by the French anti-corruption agency.
MSC is owned by the Aponte family, and it was in Somalia that the Italian-Swiss shipowner took his first steps in Africa in the early 1980s, to then expand into around forty countries on the continent. From the port of Lomé (Togo) to that of San Pedro (Ivory Coast), MSC was Bolloré’s main competitor in Africa, before the acquisition. Headquartered in Geneva, the MSC group has a fleet of 560 container ships, 23 cruise ships and more than 100,000 employees in 156 countries, with terminal management in Singapore, Long Beach (California) or Rotterdam in the Netherlands. . [Da Redazione InfoAfrica]
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Read our Zoom on existing logistics opportunities in Africa: https://www.africaeaffari.it/rivista/golfo-chiama-africa