MSC: The secretive Geneva shipping family with the global empire

The lord of the seven seas, or rather of container transport on them: Gianluigi Aponte and his family control a fifth of the freight traffic on the high seas from Geneva with their shipping company MSC. Afp Or Licensors

They are fifth on Switzerland’s rich list: the Aponte shipping family from Geneva. Their fortune is estimated at CHF18-19 billion ($20.4-21.5 billion).

Family business: The head of the family is Gianluigi Aponte (83), originally from Sorrento near Naples in Italy. Together with his wife Rafaela (78), a banker’s daughter from Geneva, he founded the MSC shipping company in Geneva. They each hold half of the shares.

Their children Diego (48) and Alexa (51) and son-in-law Pierfrancesco Vago (62) are responsible for operations, according to business magazine Bilanz. The only family outsider in the business is Group CEO Soren Toft.

Record shipping company: Gianluigi Aponte started out in the early 1970s with a few second-hand ships. Today, the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) is the largest shipping company in the world, with 793 container ships. A further 123 have already been ordered.

It ships 22 million containers of freight per year and employs 180,000 people. A fifth of the world’s sea freight is in the hands of the Geneva-based company. No other shipping company has as much market power and as many ships. In addition to the freight business, MSC has also expanded its cruise business, including a private island in the Bahamas.

Dominant appearance: One of 793 MSC container ships sets sail from a harbour. SRF

Secrecy: MSC’s profits and turnover are a family secret. Family and company representatives almost never give interviews. According to media reports, MSC generated a turnover of over €86 billion (CHF83 billion) and a profit of €36 billion in 2022.

Shipping analyst Jan Tiedemann told Swiss public broadcaster, SRF, that these figures were plausible. Business was particularly good during the Covid pandemic. “The pandemic and the delivery bottlenecks led to an extreme increase in freight rates and the shipping company earned a lot,” Tiedemann said.

Rise: With its coffers full, MSC went on a shopping spree. It bought shares in a South African hospital operator. It also acquired railway lines and rail networks in Africa and most recently in Italy. Ports are also part of the Geneva-based company’s portfolio. MSC owns 70 harbours through a subsidiary.

Spotlight: MSC made headlines with its investment in the Hamburg port operator HHLA. The Swiss are thus making inroads into the home turf of Germany’s largest container shipping company, Hapag-Lloyd.

Major shareholder Klaus-Michael Kühne was publicly annoyed by the new competition right on his doorstep. The trade unions are also not happy about the entry of the record-breaking Swiss shipping company. Hamburg harbour workers have been demonstrating and striking against the deal for weeks.

The deal is not yet done, even though the Geneva-based shipping company and the City of Hamburg now hold a good 86% of HHLA. However, it still needs the approval of the authorities and the Hamburg citizens.

Cooling off: After the boom following the pandemic and supply bottlenecks, the freight business has cooled off. Profits are no longer as abundant. This is unlikely to curb the drive for size.