In a company press release on July 7, the French container line CMA CGM Group announced that the European Commission approved the acquisition of OPDR.

The decision for joining of the German OPDR to the French giant, was first announced on November 25, 2014 by Mr. Jacques R. Saade, founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the CMA CGM Group. In order to finalize the acquisition the approval of Moroccan and European Union competition authorities was necessary.

The European Commission finalized the process by giving its approval without any conditions on June 29, 2015 and OPDR officially joined the CMA CGM Group on July 01.

The German shipping line Oldenburg-Portugiesische Dampfschiffs-Rhederei (OPDR) is an intra-European short sea transport expert. The company is a sea carrier part of the Bernhard Schulte Group.

It is specialized in short sea maritime services and door to door logistics solutions between North Europe, the Canary Islands, the Iberian Peninsula and Morocco.

Image: OPDR

The company employs 200 persons in different agencies.

The OPDR fleet sails 4 trades between:

- North Europe and the Canaries;
- South of Spain and the Canaries;
- North Europe, Spain and Portugal;
- North Europe and Morocco.

The combination of the capacities of OPDR, along with MacAndrews will reinforce the intra-European offer of the CMA CGM Group, and its tailor-made intermodal solutions.

MacAndrews is the oldest European sailing company. It was acquired by the CMA CGM Group in 2002.

MacAndrews service includes railroad, road and maritime transport. The company is specialized in container transport on short sea lines and in European multimodal solutions between the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal), United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Poland, Baltic States and Russia.

In 2014, OPDR transported around 200,000 TEUs, and MacAndrews more than 230,000 TEUs. OPDR will be a subsidiary of MacAndrews.

To maximize their efficiency, OPDR will be included to MacAndrews.

Officials from the Marseille-headquartered firm commented:

“OPDR and MacAndrews capacities combination are in line with the densification of the regional network strategy of the CMA CGM Group.”