Ocean Oct 10, 2026 · 8 min read

CMA CGM closes its FedEx Supply Chain deal and reorganises CEVA

CMA CGM closes $1.4bn FedEx Supply Chain deal, and CEVA splits into two units. CMA CGM closed its $1.4bn purchase of FedEx Supply Chain on 1 October, adding nearly 10,000 staff and 34 million sq ft of North American warehousing to CEVA Logistics. Five days later CEVA reorganised into two global units: freight management and contract logistics. Our view: the warehouses are the easy part. CEVA is still digesting earlier buys, including GEFCO and Bolloré Logistics. FedEx also becomes a preferred CMA CGM ocean customer. We expect CEVA to pitch bundled ocean-plus-US-warehouse deals into the spring 2027 transpacific contract round, and rivals to court nervous FedEx Supply Chain customers by then.

CMA CGM closes its $1.4bn FedEx Supply Chain deal, and CEVA rebuilds itself around two units
CMA CGM completed its $1.4bn purchase of FedEx Supply Chain on Thursday 1 October. The business is FedEx’s contract logistics arm. Contract logistics means running warehouses, fulfilment and distribution for a customer, usually on multi-year contracts. It now belongs to CEVA Logistics, the forwarding and logistics company CMA CGM has owned since 2019.
According to CMA CGM, the deal brings nearly 10,000 staff and about 34 million sq ft of warehouse space. CEVA now runs about 150 warehouses in the combined North American business, more than 240 locations in the region, and a North American workforce of about 20,000. CMA CGM says the deal triples CEVA’s North American logistics footprint.
Five days later, on 6 October, CEVA announced a new structure. It will run as two global business units, Freight Management and Contract Logistics, with new regional bosses underneath.
Our view is simple. CMA CGM is using shipping profits to buy earnings that don’t swing with freight rates, and it has paid a fair price for a business it can understand. The risk is not the price. The risk is that CEVA has now taken on four large businesses, by its own count, and each one has to be stitched in while customers keep shipping.

What closed, and who runs it now

FedEx announced the sale was complete on the same day. FedEx’s chief executive, Raj Subramaniam, said: “Today’s milestone demonstrates the continued progress we are making to execute our strategy with rigor and discipline.” FedEx Supply Chain was small for FedEx. According to FreightWaves, it made up less than 2% of FedEx’s consolidated annual revenue. The sale follows the spin-off of FedEx Freight, FedEx’s less-than-truckload business (LTL, freight that doesn’t fill a whole truck), which FedEx completed on 1 June, according to FedEx.
For CMA CGM, the deal is a statement about North America. Its chairman and chief executive, Rodolphe Saadé, said: “The completion of this acquisition marks an important step in the development of CMA CGM and CEVA Logistics in North America.” He added that it “reinforces CMA CGM’s long-term commitment to investing in the United States”.
There is a neat symmetry in the price. Wikipedia’s history of the unit says FedEx paid $1.4bn for GENCO, the Pittsburgh-founded logistics firm that became FedEx Supply Chain, in 2015. Eleven years later it sold for the same headline number.
CEVA’s new structure, as reported by AJOT, puts Henri Le Gouis in charge of Freight Management, which is the forwarding side: air, ocean and road. Chris Walton runs Contract Logistics, which is where the FedEx sites now sit. The regional heads are Scott Temple (Americas), Paul Bernard (North-Central Europe), Eric Dessupoiu (South Europe, including France), Olivier Boccara (Asia Pacific) and Paras Rawal (India, Middle East and Africa).
CEO Patrick Moebel took over on 1 July. He previously ran FedEx Logistics, according to FreightWaves. Wikipedia’s history of FedEx Supply Chain says it became a unit of FedEx Logistics in 2019. So the man now absorbing the business used to run the part of FedEx it came from. “Our objective is to build an organization that consistently delivers those outcomes,” Moebel said in CEVA’s announcement, carried by AJOT. The outcomes he means are the ones he says customers expect: logistics partners that are agile, connected and able to solve problems quickly. “What I have heard consistently is that we can move faster, simplify decision-making and further strengthen accountability,” he said.

Why a shipping line wants warehouses

Container shipping is a boom-and-bust business. CMA CGM’s own numbers show it. In the third quarter of 2025, its shipping revenue fell 17.4% year on year to $9.0bn and its shipping EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, a rough measure of operating profit) fell 48.8% to $2.2bn, according to the group’s results. Logistics revenue that quarter was $4.6bn, with EBITDA of $428m. That was down 6.8%, but it was nowhere near the fall in shipping.
The group was also gloomy about the sea. “The months ahead will likely be marked by increasing capacity in our industry and softer demand across the market,” it said at the time.
Warehousing contracts behave differently. A customer that has racked a building, installed robots and linked its systems does not move every time a spot rate drops. In the second quarter of 2025, CMA CGM credited “strong momentum in contract logistics operations” for its logistics performance. FedEx Supply Chain adds more of exactly that, in the US, along with expertise in healthcare, technology, and consumer and retail, according to FreightWaves.
That is the opinion behind the deal, and we think it is a sound one. A carrier that owns the warehouse at the end of the voyage has a better chance of keeping the box on its ships.

The fourth big integration

The harder question is whether CEVA can digest it. CEVA itself lists the deals: Ingram Micro’s CLS division, GEFCO, Bolloré Logistics and now FedEx Supply Chain. CEVA says it will focus on completing those integrations, with particular emphasis on FedEx Supply Chain, according to AJOT.
The Loadstar is sceptical. It points out that this week’s promises of a simpler structure, stronger accountability and a sharper customer focus look a lot like those made in July 2024, as CEVA began absorbing Bolloré Logistics. Back then, a source told the publication: “We all know huge cuts are coming, so it’s very uneasy times and it’s impacting our staff and customers.” The Loadstar’s verdict on the new round: it “looks like it could be another bumpy ride.”
The publication gives Moebel credit for how he started. “Mr Moebel, who took over on 1 July, spent his first months listening to employees, customers, and business partners,” it wrote. It also lists the work still to do: connecting systems, defining who is responsible for what, and keeping service steady.
Service is the sore point. The Loadstar reports that after a cyber-attack in August, online retailer Bol took products held at CEVA’s Veerweg facility offline. Sales restarted in stages from 20 August. That is the kind of incident that makes warehouse customers nervous during a merger, when IT systems are being joined up.

The FedEx side of the deal

The part most forwarders will care about is not the warehouses. It is the commercial ties between CMA CGM and FedEx.
According to CMA CGM, it “will become a preferred ocean carrier for FedEx”. The arrangement is non-exclusive. FreightWaves says it will run over several years. The two companies also plan to work on “an air cargo capacity agreement on key strategic routes, including Asia-Europe”, CMA CGM says, to improve aircraft use and give both sides more flexibility on long-haul flights.
FedEx runs the world’s largest cargo airline, according to FreightWaves. Neither side has published volumes, routes or dates for the air agreement, so for now it is a plan, not a product.

What it means for forwarders, shippers and lanes

For independent forwarders, a carrier-owned rival just got bigger in the US. That revives an old worry. If you book ocean space with CMA CGM, you are also competing with its sister company for the same shippers. The Loadstar ran a comment piece this week under the headline “The neutrality joke in logistics”. Our view: that worry is real, but it cuts both ways. Shippers who want one contract from port to shelf now have a clearer option, and independents will have to win on service and neutrality rather than price.
For shippers already on FedEx Supply Chain contracts, the near-term change is practical. Expect new account managers, a move onto CEVA systems, and new paperwork at renewal. Those are the moments when customers shop around.
For lanes, watch the transpacific. A carrier that controls US warehouses can offer a single price from an Asian factory to a US distribution centre. That is most useful on the Asia-US trades into the West Coast and East Coast. On Asia-Europe air, any FedEx capacity deal could add lift for both sides without new aircraft, though that depends on terms nobody has published.
For rival 3PLs (third-party logistics providers) in the US, this is a recruiting window. Integrations are when good site managers and account teams take calls from competitors.

What we expect next

Here is our call. By the end of March 2027, we expect CEVA to be selling bundled packages that combine CMA CGM ocean freight with US warehousing, aimed at the spring 2027 transpacific contract round. We also expect at least some FedEx Supply Chain customers to put their contracts out to tender in the first half of 2027, as systems and account teams change.
On the air side, we expect the two companies to announce a signed capacity agreement, with named routes, by mid-2027. If that hasn’t happened by then, treat the air cooperation as a press-release promise rather than a working product.
And if CEVA gets through the next two quarters without a visible service failure at the former FedEx sites, this will look like one of the better-timed deals of CMA CGM’s buying spree. If it doesn’t, the Loadstar’s “bumpy ride” will look like an understatement.

Sources