What does Macron have to do with the sale of Bolloré Africa to MSC di Aponte
Why did Bolloré sell its logistics assets in Africa to MSC, the Aponte family's shipping company? According to Limes, Macron's intervention was fundamental: here's why
Last month the maritime transport company Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), founded by Gianluigi Aponte, completed the acquisition of Bolloré Africa Logistics, the African division of the logistics company Bolloré Transport & Logistics headed by the French entrepreneur Vincent Bolloré .
The operation has a value of 5.7 billion euros.
On Limes , the journalist Fiorina Capozzi – who has been following the corporate galaxy headed by the French entrepreneur for some time – however asked herself a question about the agreement: "why on earth would a Breton industrialist and financier like Vincent Bolloré, owner of Vivendi and a profound connoisseur of Africa”, he writes , “should he have got rid of a strategic business, even for his own country, which grinds operating profits at the rate of 32% per year?”.
WHAT DON'T GET BACK FROM THE SALE OF BOLLORÉ AFRICA LOGISTICS
According to Capozzi, the sale of Bolloré Africa Logistics would make no sense either from an economic point of view, given that the activities on the continent guaranteed important revenues to the company, or from a political point of view: up to the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy – claims the journalist -, Vincent Bolloré was the "ear of the French state in the former colonies" of Africa.
Furthermore, "the idea that the Bolloré family wants to concentrate its investments on a single business", that of the media, "doesn't add up at all" with the thoughts of the businessman, who has always been attentive to diversification.
“Something is missing”, adds Capozzi, “of the meaning of the sale of Bolloré Africa Logistics, which makes MSC the undisputed master of freight traffic to and from Africa. Continent that has always been considered by the Elysee and by France as a land of conquest, if not a colony”.
RELATIONS BETWEEN MACRON AND BOLLORÉ
According to Limes , Bolloré would have decided to sell the African logistics assets not due to particular business difficulties, but due to his "difficult relationship" with the French president Emmanuel Macron.
That there is no particular harmony between the two is also demonstrated by the loan that Bolloré offered to Éric Zemmour, an extreme right-wing politician, in the last presidential elections: "Macron, on the other hand, was reconfirmed and for the Bolloré family the climate has become even more heavier […]. It is in this context of continuous conflict with the Elysée", and more generally with the liberal elites who support Macron, "that Bolloré made the decision to abandon African logistics".
KOHLER'S ROLE
The sale to MSC – writes Capozzi – was led directly by the Macron administration and in particular by Alexis Kohler, the secretary general of the presidency who is also under investigation for an alleged conflict of interest linked to his ties with the Aponte company and with the same family: "his mother, Sola Hakim, […] is the cousin of Raffaela Diamant, daughter of Régine Hakim and the Swiss banker Pinhas Diamant, as well as wife of the Sorrentine shipowner Gianluigi Aponte".
Kohler is the adviser closest to Macron and who has the most influence over him.
According to the reconstruction of the journalist, therefore, Kohler would have put pressure on Bolloré to convince him to leave African logistics and to sell these activities "to someone deemed more reliable for the interests of the Elysée": that is, to the shipowners of MSC, who "have become leaders world leaders in international logistics by sea and who already know the African continent well”, with a presence that dates back decades.
MSC IS MACRON'S PERFECT ALLY
Thanks to its infrastructural presence – which is not limited to maritime transport, but also includes ports, barges and railways – MSC is "the new great ally that Macron wanted in Africa both from the point of view of geopolitical relations and from a more properly industrial one, also to manage the network of friendships that have always been the strength of French companies in Africa”.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/cessione-bollore-africa-msc-ruolo-macron/ on Tue, 03 Jan 2023 15:03:26 +0000.