Sentinel Reinsurance was incorporated on 26 March and authorised on 28 April to carry out reinsurance operations. Its registered office is in Howald and its share capital amounts to $70m, fully paid up. Its purpose is to carry out all reinsurance operations, excluding direct insurance, as well as to acquire shareholdings in similar or complementary entities. The sole shareholder of the company is the CMA CGM Group, represented at the time of incorporation by its chairman and chief executive officer, Rodolphe Saadé.
This move is in line with standard practice among major industrial and logistics groups, which internalise part of their risk coverage through captive reinsurance companies, particularly to optimise their claim management and insurance costs.
At the helm of CMA CGM since 2017, Rodolphe Saadé has radically transformed the group founded by his father. Born in Beirut in 1970 and educated in Canada, he joined the family business in 1994 before gradually taking the reins. Under his leadership, CMA CGM has become a global player in transport and logistics, building on a strategy of vertical integration and targeted acquisitions. In particular, the group has strengthened its logistics capabilities with Ceva Logistics and has stepped up investment to cover the entire value chain, from maritime transport to the last mile.
Media division
Alongside his industrial activities, Rodolphe Saadé has, in just a few years, built up a media division centred on his subsidiary CMA Média. The group controls, in particular, the daily newspapers La Provence and Corse-Matin, the business newspaper La Tribune and its Sunday edition, as well as leading broadcast assets acquired through the takeover of Altice Media, including BFM TV and the radio station RMC. It has also established a presence in digital formats with the media outlet Brut and holds a stake in the M6 group.
Rodolphe Saadé’s fortune, derived mainly from the family’s majority stake in CMA CGM, is estimated to be worth tens of billions of euros, reflecting the group’s rapid rise in global trade.
