Private Investors Join CMA CGM Talks

Private investors on Thursday joined key talks between CMA CGM and its bankers over restructuring the troubled French ocean carrier’s $5.6 billion of debts.

Apollo Management, the U.S. private equity group that owns CEVA Logistics, French commodity trader Louis Dreyfus and its former shipping unit LDA, and Paris-based Butler Capital Partners reportedly joined the negotiations with CMA CGM’s French, European and Asian creditor banks.

The three groups are said to be interested in acquiring a stake in CMA CGM, the world’s third-largest ocean carrier.

U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs and Bollore, a French transport and industrial group, also are understood to have joined the talks.

The meeting at the French finance ministry in Paris is seen as key to CMA CGM’s future and is likely to continue into Friday.

Denis Ranque, the former head of defense electronics group Thales and who bankers want to be appointed to a key role at privately held CMA CGM before they agree to restructure its debts, is also said to be attending the meeting. Ranque reportedly visited CMA CGM’s headquarters in Marseilles on Wednesday.

CMA CGM Chairman Jacques Saade said last week he wants outside investors to inject $300 million to $400 million into the carrier and hold stakes for five to seven years. Saade said the company faces a cash crunch because it must find $1.2 billion in upfront payments for container ships it ordered in Asia.

CMA CGM, which began talks with its banks and the French finance ministry in late September, said it expects to reach agreement by mid-December, a month later than originally planned.

CMA CGM lost $515 million in the first half of 2009 but says it is on track to break even by the end of the year and return to profitability in 2010.