Shipowner tycoon turned media baron Rodolphe Saadé plans to launch a national Sunday newspaper later this year, according to local media reports in the latest instalment of how one of France’s richest men is spending the millions earned during liner shipping’s purple patch.
Saadé, the head of CMA CGM, already controls three newspapers in France – La Provence, La Tribune and Corse Matin – as well as having stakes in TV channel M6 and online media platform Brut. He has also been tipped to take over BFMTV, a news channel.
“CMA CGM aims to be a decisive player in innovation and transformation in the media sector,” the Marseille-headquartered company, best known for its liner activities, stated in a release earlier this year.
Shipowners owning media titles is nothing new. In Greece, Evangelos Marinakis has become one of the nation’s top media tycoons to go alongside his sprawling shipping and football empires. Likewise, Giannis Alafouzos is equally known in Greece for his media holdings as well as his shipowning interests.
In Norway, the Olsens own media group NHST, publishers of TradeWinds, via their control of the Bonheur Group while in Asia there have been many examples of shipping tycoons controlling media groups such as Robert Kuok’s tenure at the South China Morning Post. Elsewhere, the K K Birla Group, which owns the Hindustan Times newspaper also owns India Steamship Co, which has been running since 1928.
