Photo credit: MSC / the company has “Appetite for Growth” in Africa, CEO Soren Toft tells Abidjan forum
The world’s leading container shipping line, MSC, acquired Bolloré Africa Logistics last year and now wants to rebrand the entity. Bolloré Africa Logistics will be known as Africa Global Logistics (AGL), according to MSC report. The new brand will continue to operate as an independent entity with the full support of the family-owned MSC Group.
The transaction took place last year and had the support of all applicable regulatory authorities. The move highlights the commitment of MSC to invest in African supply chains and infrastructure, and as the MSC Group´s President Diego Aponte said at that time the deal will strengthen “MSC’s longstanding ties with Africa”.
MSC has reinforced its continuous investment in Africa with the introduction of the AGL brand. The container major now intends to continue investing in all its cargo businesses that operate in Africa.
AGL is a multimodal logistics operator with more 21,000 employees working in 49 countries, and is now part of the Cargo Division of the MSC Group.
MSC will count on AGL as a preferred logistics partner, in addition to MSC’s existing MEDLOG inland transportation and logistics business.
AGL has a thriving logistics footprint in Africa, as the company states, from warehousing and cold storage to other logistics solutions. AGL will also support MSC and all other shipping lines with productive maritime container terminals, as well as efficient multipurpose terminals and rail operations.
“Our industry connects consumers with producers. It makes trade happen and it pulls people towards prosperity,” MSC CEO Soren Toft said, in a keynote interview with CNN’s Eleni Giokos at the conference in Abidjan last year. “We have a lot of appetite for growth and Africa is a growing continent.”
By investing billions of dollars in the continent, MSC plans to contribute further to the evolution of Africa’s maritime and inland transportation networks, building on the past several years which have seen a number of African ports start to berth container ships of 13-14,000 TEUs.
Mr. Soren said he was optimistic that Africa would develop larger ports and that in the long term they could one day be better and more productive than some of the world’s largest ports.
