The Man Behind BlackRock

In the past three years, Gianluigi Aponte's shipping company has invested $40 billion in multiple areas, including ships, ports, hospitals and high-speed railways. Recently, he has partnered with BlackRock to acquire 43 ports from the conglomerate of Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing.

Original title: "Trump sets his sights on the Panama Canal. Meet the Swiss billionaire who bought two key ports of the canal with BlackRock"

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

"Just today, a large American company announced that they will acquire two ports around the Panama Canal." The politicians gathered in the Capitol responded with applause.

The deal he was referring to was the sale of 43 ports owned by Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings Limited (CK Hutchison), owned by Li Ka-shing, to a consortium led by asset management company BlackRock for $23 billion, of which the two ports in the Panama Canal were only a small part.

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

MSC was co-founded in 1970 by Swiss-Italian billionaires Gianluigi and Raffaella Aponte.

While the ownership structure of the sale has not been made public, the deal will make MSC the world’s largest port operator, with stakes in more than 100 terminals in 54 countries, including eight in the United States and three in Panama.

MSC owns 70% of TIL, Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), led by American billionaire Adebayo “Bayo” Ogunlesi, which was acquired by BlackRock for $12.5 billion last October, owns 20%, and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC owns the remaining 10%. Ogunlesi and the Apontes first worked together in 2013 when GIP bought a 35% stake in TIL from MSC for $1.4 billion, before selling portions of their stakes in 2019 and 2021.

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

The deal, which is subject to approval by European and Panamanian regulators, would see BlackRock and TIL take over CK Hutchison's ports outside of China and Hong Kong for $18 billion in cash plus $5 billion in debt.

It's the latest in a string of acquisitions by the Apontes, whose MSC surpassed Danish-listed rival Maersk to become the world's largest container shipping company in early 2022. Now, MSC is also on track to surpass Maersk in the size of its port network.

Two

"The growth in (MSC's) liner shipping capacity has been closely tied to a significant expansion in terminal throughput capacity," said Eirik Hooper, senior researcher for ports and terminals at shipping research firm Drewry. "The two businesses clearly support each other and offer opportunities for large operational synergies."

BlackRock's investment in ports comes just over a year after announcing its acquisition of GIP. The company said infrastructure is a trillion-dollar market that is set to grow further due to increasing investment in assets such as airports, railways and shipping ports.

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

After the deal with CK Hutchison is completed, MSC will hold shares in three ports in the Panama Canal, two on the Pacific side and one on the Atlantic side (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

Forbes estimates that before the deal with CK Hutchison, MSC had spent more than $40 billion since January 2022, investing in new ports, hospitals and even an Italian high-speed rail company. Most of the money was spent on new ships: according to data from ship valuation company VesselsValue, the company has bought or ordered 370 ships in the past three years, spending more than $31 billion.

MSC, which is highly concentrated in shares, is low-key and secretive. It does not publish financial data and has declined to comment on it, but documents obtained by Italian newspaper Il Messaggero show that MSC had $68 billion in cash at the end of 2022. Shipping companies have recorded record profits as supply chain disruptions during the pandemic caused freight rates to soar.

Three

MSC's ownership is divided equally between Chairman Aponte and his wife Raffaella Aponte-Diamante, who was born in Italy but is now a Swiss citizen and lives in Geneva. Aponte resigned from the bank in 1970 and founded MSC with the help of his wife, buying their first ship with a loan of $200,000.

Forbes estimates that their respective net worths are $37.5 billion, enough to make Aponte-Diamante the richest self-made woman in the world. The two are now worth $58 billion more than they were estimated to be worth at the beginning of 2022. A spokesman for MSC declined to comment and did not make either of the Apontes available for an interview.

"Before it became clear that the pandemic was good for shipping companies, Aponte had already started acquiring all the assets he could and expanding," said John McCown, a shipping expert at the Center for Maritime Strategy, a think tank. "It's a bold strategy, but it's working so far."

While the boom brought about by the pandemic has helped all shipping companies, MSC has benefited more than its competitors.

According to Le Courier, the company achieved revenues of $93 billion and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $46 billion in 2022, surpassing Maersk and CMA CGM, owned by the French billionaire Saadé family. And even if MSC’s cruise business suffered—net profit of $456 million in 2019, but the pandemic led to a cumulative net loss of more than $3 billion over three years—the success of its container shipping business more than made up for it: MSC’s EBITDA grew by more than 600% between 2020 and 2022, compared with 350% for Maersk and 445% for CMA CGM.

Four

MSC used the cash it earned during the pandemic to expand its business beyond the oceans.

It’s targeting companies that move goods to their final destination over land, while also acquiring other shipping lines beyond container freight. Since January 2022, MSC has spent more than $3.6 billion to acquire stakes in 10 companies, including a trucking company, a cargo airline, a car carrier, two logistics companies, a tugboat operator and a freight forwarder. Freight forwarders act as middlemen between product transport companies and the product’s final destination, organizing the movement of goods by sea, rail, road or air.

“These freight forwarders are just a way to feed this huge business system and bring in additional freight volume,” McCown said. “This is not surprising given MSC’s strong growth and expansion momentum.” In August 2022, cash-rich MSC even teamed up with South African billionaire Johann Rupert’s Remgro to acquire South Africa-based private hospital chain Mediclinic for $4.6 billion. MSC’s next big move outside of shipping came in October 2023, when it bought a 50% stake in Italian high-speed rail company Italo from Ogunlesi’s GIP for $2.2 billion. MSC has been operating cruise ships since 1988 and bought a Mediterranean ferry company in 2010, but this is its first foray into passenger rail.

MSC President Diego Aponte, son of Gianluigi and Raffaella, said in a statement at the time that the acquisition reflected the group's "goal of further developing sustainable transportation models for passengers and freight." The deal, which closes in May 2024, is likely to be another successful investment for Aponte: New Passenger Transport achieved $926 million in revenue and $178 million in profit in 2023, up 21% and 36% respectively from the previous year.

Five

The Apontes had been expanding their port empire before the deal with CK Hutchison. In March 2022, MSC acquired a 50% stake in Busan Port in South Korea, and eight months later it bought Bolloré Africa Logistics, which owns container terminals, dry ports, railways and logistics services, from French billionaire Vincent Bolloré's Bolloré Group for $5.9 billion. The acquisition made MSC the largest logistics company in Africa and the seventh largest port owner in the world. Last November, it acquired a 49.9% stake in Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA), a German listed logistics company that owns major ports in Hamburg, Estonia, Italy and Odessa, Ukraine, for $700 million.

MSC has the world's largest container fleet, accounting for 20% of the global fleet's total capacity, ahead of its closest competitors Maersk (14%) and CMA CGM (12%), according to shipping data company Alphaliner. Photo credit: MOHSSEN ASSANIMOGHADDAM/PICTURE ALLIANCE/GETTY IMAGES

"Owning your own ports has advantages and gives you priority," said Ben Slupecki, an analyst at Morningstar, noting that it is beneficial to acquire more ports while growing the fleet. “These are valuable assets in the industry.”

All of this has given MSC an unprecedented advantage, which may have been the reason why it announced in January 2023 that it planned to end its 10-year partnership with Maersk. The partnership, called 2M, saw the two companies share 185 ships on routes from northern European and North American ports to Asia to reduce costs. The alliance, which was established in 2015, officially expired in January this year.

Six

Maersk has joined other alliances, while MSC has chosen to go it alone. “With 20% of the world’s capacity, they are no longer big enough to run an alliance,” Slupetsky added.

And with partners like Ogunlesi and Fink’s BlackRock, MSC may not need more support. And Aponte is not done expanding: His company reportedly plans to increase its stake in Spanish billionaire Vicente Boluda Fos’ Boluda Tugboat Company to 49% by May, which would make MSC the world’s largest tugboat company.

MSC may not be able to sustain such high spending levels forever. After years of rapid growth, the wave that shipping companies are riding is changing.

Freight prices have fallen from their 2022 peak and are currently about 50% above their pre-pandemic 2019 levels. This slowdown, combined with the potential impact of Trump’s tariffs and any ensuing trade war, could curb MSC’s profit levels.

“If the tariffs are implemented, there will be a real impact on container traffic to and from the United States. This segment of freight accounts for 25% to 30% of the world’s container miles,” added McCown.

Container traffic to and from the U.S., however, accounts for a relatively small portion of global container trade. While MSC may have to sell some of its ports in the Netherlands and Panama to appease regulators scrutinizing the CK Hutchison deal, it still holds stakes in more than 100 ports, more than any other company. With that size and the world’s largest container fleet, MSC is more resilient than its rivals to any downturn.

“An industry giant like MSC that has the ability to invest may be able to weather a pretty big storm and continue to thrive afterward,” Slupecki said. "Some of their competitors may not be so lucky. In some ways, this is an advantage for MSC, as they can further gain market share even in difficult times."