In the past three years, Ji'an Luigi Apant's shipping company has invested US$40 billion in multiple fields, covering ships, ports, hospitals and high-speed rail. Recently, he cooperated with BlackRock to acquire 43 ports from the conglomerate of Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing.

Original title: "Trump is eyeing the Panama Canal." Come and meet the Swiss billionaire who bought the two key ports of the canal with BlackRock"

In a speech to the joint meeting of Congress on March 4, Donald Trump proudly announced a deal on the two ports of the Panama Canal that day.

"Just today, a large American company announced that they would acquire two ports around the Panama Canal." The politicians gathered at the Capitol received a lot of applause.

The transaction he refers to is that Li Ka-shing's Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison sold its 43 ports to a consortium led by asset management company BlackRock. These two ports in the Panama Canal are just small components.

What Trump did not mention is that Terminal Investment Limited (TIL), one of the two partners of the deal, is a branch of Swiss shipping giant MSC.

MSC was co-founded in 1970 by Swiss-Italian billionaires Gianluigi and Rafaela Alponte.

Although the ownership structure of the sale has not been disclosed, the deal will make MSC the world's largest port operator, with stakes in more than 100 terminals in 54 and regions, including eight in the United States and three in Panama.

MSC holds 70% of TIL shares, and Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP, acquired by BlackRock for US$12.5 billion in October last year) led by US billionaire Adebayo "Bayo" Ogunlesi, 20% of the shares, Singapore's sovereign wealth baseGold Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) owns the remaining 10% stake. Ogunlace and Aponte first collaborated in 2013, when GIP acquired a 35% stake in TIL from MSC for $1.4 billion, before selling some shares in 2019 and 2021.

American billionaire Adebayo Ogunlacesi is co-founder of private equity firm GIP, which first invested in the Apontes' TIL in 2013. Image source: VICTOR J. BLUE/BLOOMBERG

The transaction is still subject to approval by European and Panama regulators. If approved, BlackRock and TIL will take over the Yangtze River Hutchison ports outside the Mainland and Hong Kong for US$18 billion in cash payments and the assumption of US$5 billion in debt.

This is the latest in a series of acquisitions by the Apontes. In early 2022, their MSC surpassed Danish listed rival Maersk to become the world's largest container shipping company. Now, MSC is expected to surpass Maersk in port network size.

"The growth of liner transport capacity (MSC) is closely related to a significant expansion of terminal throughput capacity," said Eirik Hooper, senior researcher at the shipping research firm Drewry. "These two businesses clearly support each other and provide opportunities for achieving large-scale operational synergy."

BlackRock invested in the port just over a year after announcing its acquisition of GIP. The company said infrastructure is a trillion-dollar market and will grow further as investments in assets such as airports, rail and shipping ports continue to grow.

BlackRock's billionaire CEO Larry Fink said in a statement at the time that infrastructure was "one of the most exciting long-term investment opportunities."

After the completion of the transaction with the Yangtze River Hutchison, MSC will hold shares in three ports in the Panama Canal, two on the Pacific and one on the Atlantic (it is not ruled out that local regulators will require MSC to divest the ports it currently owns). Image source: MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

According to Forbes, before reaching a deal with Yangtze River Hutchison, MSC has invested more than US$40 billion since January 2022, investing in various fields such as new ports, hospitals and even an Italian high-speed rail company. Much of that money is spent on new ships: In the past three years, the company has purchased or ordered 370 ships, spending more than $31 billion, according to ship valuation company VesselsValue.

The highly concentrated equity MSC is low-key and mysterious. It does not publish financial data and declines to comment on it, but documents obtained by the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero show that MSC has $68 billion in cash by the end of 2022. Shipping companies recorded record profits as supply chains were blocked during the pandemic.

The ownership of the MSC is equally distributed by Chairman Apante and his wife Rafaela Apante-Diamante, who was born in Italy but is now a Swiss citizen and lives in Geneva. In 1970, Aponte resigned from the bank and founded the MSC with the help of his wife, purchasing their first ship with a loan of $200,000.

Forbes estimates that their respective net worth is $37.5 billion, enough to make Aponte Diamante the richest self-made woman in the world. The total current net worth of the two is US$58 billion more than their net worth in early 2022. A spokesperson for the MSC declined to comment on this and did not arrange for any of the Apontes to be interviewed. "Before the pandemic became clear that it was good for shipping companies, Aponte had already started acquiring all of its acquireable assets and expanded," said John McCown, a shipping expert at the Center for Maritime Strategy, a think tank. "This is a bold strategy, but it works for now."

While the prosperity brought by the epidemic has helped all shipping companies, MSC benefits more than its competitors.

The company achieved $93 billion in revenue and $46 billion in EBITDA in 2022, surpassing Maersk and French billionaire Saad (Sa)The adé family owned by the CMA CGM. Moreover, even though MSC's cruise business suffered a setback - net profit in 2019 was US$456 million, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a cumulative net loss of more than US$3 billion in three years - the success of its container shipping business far compensated for this loss: between 2020 and 2022, MSC's EBITDA grew by more than 600%, while Maersk's growth was 350%, and Dafei Shipping Group's 445%.

MSC uses the cash earned during the epidemic to expand its business territory beyond the ocean.

It targets companies that transport goods to their final destinations on land, and also acquires shipping companies other than container freight. Since January 2022, MSC has spent more than $3.6 billion to acquire shares in 10 companies, including a trucking company, a cargo airline, a cargo transportation company, two logistics companies, a tug operator and a freight forwarding company. The freight forwarding company acts as an intermediary between the product transport company and the final destination of the product, organizing the transportation of goods by sea, rail, road or air.

"These freight forwarders are nothing more than a way to support this huge business system and can bring in additional freight volumes," McCowan said. "It's not surprising that MSC's growth and expansion momentum are so strong." In August 2022, the well-funded MSC even partnered with South African billionaire Johann Rupert's Remgro to acquire Mediclinic, a private hospital chain based in South Africa for $4.6 billion. MSC’s next major move beyond its shipping business occurred in October 2023, when it acquired a 50% stake in the Italian high-speed rail company New Passenger Transport (Italo) from Ogunlace’s GIP for $2.2 billion.

MSC has been operating in cruise business since 1988 and also acquired a Mediterranean ferry company in 2010, but this is its first entry into the passenger railway field. Diego Aponte, the son of Gianluigi and Rafaela and president of MSC, said in a statement at the time that the acquisition reflects the group's "goal to further develop sustainable transportation models for passenger and freight." The deal was completed in May 2024 and is likely toBecome another successful investment by Aponte: New passenger transportation achieved revenue of US$926 million and profit of US$178 million in 2023, up 21% and 36% respectively over the previous year.

The Apant and his wife had been expanding their port empire before they reached a deal with the Yangtze River Hutchison. In March 2022, MSC acquired a 50% stake in the South Korean port of Busan. Eight months later, it acquired Bolloré Africa Logistics from the French billionaire Vincent Bolloré Group for $5.9 billion, which owns container terminals, land ports, railways and logistics services. The acquisition makes MSC the largest logistics company in Africa and the seventh largest port owner in the world. In November last year, it acquired a 49.9% stake in the German listed logistics company Hamburg Port and Logistics AG (HHLA), which owns major ports in Hamburg, Estonia, Italy and Odessa, Ukraine for $700 million.

According to shipping data company Alphaliner, MSC has the world's largest container fleet, accounting for 20% of the global fleet's total fleet capacity, ahead of its closest competitors Maersk (14%) and Dafei Shipping Group (12%). Image source: MOHSSEN ASSANIMOGHADDAM/PICTURE ALLIANCE/GETTY IMAGES

"Owning your own port is good and gives you priority," said Ben Slupecki, an analyst at Morningstar, pointing out that it is beneficial to acquire more ports while growing the fleet. "These are valuable assets in the industry."

All this gave MSC an unprecedented strong advantage, perhaps driven by this factor, which announced in January 2023 that it planned to terminate its 10-year partnership with Maersk. The cooperation between the two is called the 2M Alliance, where the two companies share the capacity of 185 ships on routes from Nordic and North American ports to Asia to reduce costs. The alliance was established in 2015 and officially expired in January this year.

Maersk has joined another league, while MSC chooses to fight alone. “They haveWith 20% of the global capacity, this scale no longer requires running an alliance. ” Slupetsky added.

Finke added.

MSC may not need more support anymore with partners like Ogunressi and Fink-led BlackRock. In addition, Aponte's expansion has not stopped: his company reportedly plans to increase its stake in Boluda tug company of Spanish billionaire Vicente Boluda Fos to 49% by May, which will make MSC the world's largest tug company.

MSC may not be able to maintain such a high spending level all the time. After years of rapid growth, the wave that shipping companies are riding on is changing.

MSC may not be able to maintain such a high spending level all the time.

Freight prices have fallen from their peak in 2022 and are currently about 50% higher than their pre-pandemic levels in 2019. This slowdown, coupled with the potential impact of Trump’s tariffs and any subsequent trade wars, could dampen MSC’s profit levels.

"If the tariffs are determined to be implemented, container shipping to and from the United States will be tangible. This portion of freight accounts for 25% to 30% of the world's container transport mileage," McCowan added.

Button, container transport to and from the United States accounts for a relatively small proportion of global container trade. While MSC may have to sell some of its ports in the Netherlands and Panama to appease the regulators reviewing the Yangtze River Hutchison transactions, it still has more than 100 ports, more than any other company. With this size and the world's largest container fleet, MSC is more risk-resistant than its competitors, no matter what the decline is facing.

"Industry giants like MSC may be able to withstand a considerable storm and continue to grow thereafter. "Slupetsky said. "Some of their competitors may not be so lucky." To some extent, this constitutes an advantage for MSCs, and they can further gain market share even when faced with difficulties. ”

This article is translated from:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2025/03/19/as-trump-makes-panama-canal-demands-meet-the-swiss-bilionaire-who-bought-two-key-ports-with-blackrock/

Text: Giacomo Tognini

Translation: Lemin