CEVA Logistics Opens Marseille HQ

On the occasion of his visit to Marseille for the National Industry Council, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe came to inaugurate the new global headquarters of CEVA Logistics, a subsidiary of the CMA CGM Group, with Rodolphe Saadé, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the CMA CGM Group.

The Prime Minister was accompanied by Elisabeth Borne, Minister for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition, the President of the South Region, Renaud Muselier, and Nicolas Sartini, Chief Executive Officer of CEVA Logistics.

With the acquisition of CEVA Logistics in May 2019, the CMA CGM Group decided to transfer the decision-making center of its specialized subsidiary to Marseille and to consolidate all management teams and support functions. 170 employees of 25 different nationalities are already working at the CEVA Logistics headquarters and additional recruitments and transfers are planned to accommodate 200 people by the end of 2019.

Located in the heart of the docks, the head office features modern premises and optimal working conditions with an area of 2,400 square meters, five meeting rooms, 200 workstations and two co-working spaces.

The proximity to the Jacques Saadé Tower, the headquarters of the CMA CGM Group located in the same neighborhood, will promote synergies and the exchange of best practices.

The decision to move CEVA Logistics' headquarters to Marseille will create new jobs and increase Marseille's international reach. It also confirms the local presence of the CMA CGM Group and its commitment to the attractiveness of the region, helping to make the city a real logistics hub.

Major industrial challenge: strengthen the digitization of the logistics sector
On the occasion of the inauguration, Renaud Muselier, President of the South Region, announced that the region would participate, in an amount of €1.5 million, in the financing of a cluster of digital and innovative projects that will transform the functioning of solutions for CEVA Logistics customers. In particular:

• SmartFREIGHT: a solution for Maritime FCL/LCL, Air, Domestic; with a unique online space to manage the complete life of shipments, in particular enabling instant pricing from origin and to destination. This ECommerce platform will allow for more environmentally responsible transport. A partnership with startups housed in ZEBOX, the international start-ups incubator and accelerator created by Rodolphe Saadé, has been established to define the carbon impact of each type of transport and make it available to customers.
• Network optimization initiative piloted by the U.S. intermodal network. The purpose is to redefine, on the basis of current transport, the positioning adequacy of HUBS in the Americas using optimization algorithms. Initial analyses resulted in an optimization of nearly 3%, or approximately 150,000 miles per month.

This movement to strengthen digitization at CEVA Logistics is fully in line with Rodolphe Saadé's strategy to make CMA CGM a leader in the digital transformation of the maritime transport and logistics industry.

During his speech, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe stated: “Undoubtedly, CEVA’s installation in France and its future development is good news. It is good news for CMA CGM, which is a remarkable, family-owned company and one of the key players in global maritime trade. It is also excellent news for the company, the city, the French economy and therefore the whole country.”

Rodolphe Saadé, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the CMA CGM Group, declared: “As soon as the acquisition of CEVA was finalized, we decided to relocate its headquarters to Marseille. CEVA will be able to benefit from the entire ecosystem of the CMA CGM Group, such as its incubator ZEBOX or its internal university. From France, we will build a world leader in logistics.”

Renaud Muselier, President of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Region, President of Régions de France, said, “We had the opportunity to attract to Marseille the headquarters of a world-class company, in the wake of the CMA CGM Group, which perfectly succeeded in this operation. It is for this reason that the South Region will commit $1.6 million to the development of a digital innovation cluster for CEVA Logistics' processes. As President of the Region, and President of Régions de France, convincing such companies to choose the South region as their location is a win-win situation for the entire region!”