CMA CGM Buys Its Way Deeper Into America With FedEx Deal

The French shipping giant CMA CGM has never been shy about its American ambitions. This week it wrote another cheque to prove it.

The Marseille-based container line agreed to acquire FedEx Supply Chain, the third-party logistics arm of FedEx Corp, at an enterprise value of $1.4 billion, in a deal announced Wednesday and expected to close in 2026. The unit folds into CEVA Logistics, CMA CGM's contract-logistics subsidiary — and it is no bolt-on. The acquisition would nearly triple the size of CEVA's North American contract logistics operations.

The combined footprint is formidable. CEVA will run roughly 150 warehouses and employ 20,000 people across more than 240 North American locations, absorbing nearly 10,000 FedEx staff in the process. For a company that has spent the past decade building a one-stop logistics shop off its ocean-shipping roots, including its own all-cargo airline, it is a decisive move up the value chain.

There is symmetry in the price. The $1.4 billion figure matches exactly what FedEx paid for the unit in 2015, when it was known as Genco. A decade on, FedEx is unwinding the bet, casting the sale as a sharpening of focus. CEO Raj Subramaniam said the divestment lets FedEx concentrate on high-value verticals including healthcare, automotive, aerospace and data centres.

The politics are not incidental. CMA CGM chairman Rodolphe Saadé pledged to President Trump during a 2025 Oval Office meeting to invest $20 billion in the United States over four years — and this deal, paired with new multi-year air and ocean freight agreements between the two firms, keeps that promise moving