Over the past three years, Gianluigi Aponte’s shipping company has spent more than $40 billion investing in everything from ships and ports to hospitals and high-speed rail—and that was before teaming up with BlackRock to buy 43 ports from Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing’s conglomerate.
Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2025/03/19/as-trump-makes-panama-canal-demands-meet-the-swiss-billionaire-who-bought-two-key-ports-with-blackrock/
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Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2025/03/19/as-trump-makes-panama-canal-demands-meet-the-swiss-billionaire-who-bought-two-key-ports-with-blackrock/
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Today on Forbes, as Trump makes Panama Canal demands, meet the Swiss billionaire who bought
00:06two key ports with BlackRock.
00:10During his speech to a joint session of Congress on March 4th, President Donald Trump touted
00:14a deal that had closed that day for two ports on the Panama Canal.
00:19He said, quote,
00:20"...just today, a large American company announced they are buying both ports around
00:24the Panama Canal."
00:27Politicians in the audience gathered at the Capitol applauded.
00:31The deal to which Trump was referring was the sale of 43 ports owned by billionaire
00:35Li Ka-shing's Hong Kong-based conglomerate, CK Hutchison, to a group led by asset manager
00:41BlackRock for $23 billion, and the two Panama ports were just a small part of it.
00:48What Trump didn't say was that one of the two partners in the deal, Terminal Investment
00:53Limited, is an arm of Swiss shipping giant Mediterranean Shipping Company, commonly known
00:58as MSC, co-founded by Swiss-Italian billionaires Gianluigi and Raffaele Aponte in 1970.
01:07While the ownership structure of the sale hasn't been made public, the deal will turn
01:11MSC into the largest port operator in the world, with stakes in more than 100 terminals
01:16in 54 countries, including 8 in the U.S. and 3 in Panama.
01:22MSC owns 70% of Terminal Investment, while investment firm Global Infrastructure Partners,
01:28or GIP, led by U.S. billionaire Adebayo Bayo Ogunleze, and now owned by BlackRock, which
01:34bought it for $12.5 billion in October, holds 20%, and the Singaporean sovereign wealth
01:41fund GIC owns the remaining 10%.
01:44Ogunleze and the Apontes first teamed up in 2013, when GIP bought a 35% stake in Terminal
01:51Investment from MSC for $1.4 billion before selling part of its shares in 2019 and 2021.
02:00Pending approval from European and Panamanian regulators, the deal will see BlackRock and
02:05Terminal Investment take over CK Hutchison's ports outside of China and Hong Kong for a
02:10cash payment of $18 billion plus the assumption of $5 billion in debt.
02:16It's the latest in a string of acquisitions for the Apontes, whose MSC overtook publicly
02:21traded Danish rival Maersk to become the world's largest container shipping line in early 2022.
02:28Now it's set to overtake Maersk in terms of its port network as well.
02:33Eric Hooper, Senior Associate of Ports and Terminals at maritime research firm Drury,
02:39says, quote,
02:40MSC's growth in liner shipping capacity has gone hand-in-glove with this huge expansion
02:45in terminal capacity. The two businesses clearly support each other and provide opportunities
02:50for operational synergies at a huge scale.
02:54For its part, BlackRock's investment in ports comes little more than a year after it announced
02:59the acquisition of Global Infrastructure Partners, with the firm touting infrastructure as a
03:04$1 trillion market set to grow even further thanks to increasing investment in assets
03:09such as airports, railroads, and shipping ports.
03:13BlackRock's billionaire CEO Larry Fink called infrastructure, quote,
03:17one of the most exciting long-term investment opportunities in a statement at the time.
03:23Even before the CK Hutchison deal, MSC has spent more than $40 billion since January
03:282022, according to Forbes estimates, investing in everything from new ports to hospitals
03:34and even a high-speed rail company in Italy.
03:38The bulk of that was new ships. Over the past three years, the firm has bought or ordered
03:42370 vessels for more than $31 billion, according to ship valuation experts Vessels Value.
03:51The secretive, closely held MSC doesn't publish financial data and declined to comment
03:56on them. But according to documents obtained by Italian newspaper Il Messaggero, it ended
04:022022 with $68 billion in cash, thanks to a surge in freight rates during the pandemic
04:08as snarled supply chains powered shipping firms to record profits.
04:13Ownership of MSC is split equally between Aponte, the chairman who was born in Italy
04:18but is now a Swiss citizen and lives in Geneva, and his wife, Raffaella Aponte Diamant, who
04:24helped him found the firm when he quit his job at a bank and started MSC with a $200,000
04:29loan to buy their first ship in 1970.
04:34Forbes estimates they are now each worth $37.5 billion, enough to make Aponte Diamant the
04:40richest self-made woman in the world. That's a combined $58 billion more than their estimated
04:46net worth in early 2022.
04:51For full coverage, check out Giacomo Taggini's piece on Forbes.com.
04:56This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes. Thanks for tuning in.