Gianluigi Aponte (Italian pronunciation: [dʒanluˈiːdʒi aˈponte]; born 27 June 1940) is an Italian billionaire businessman, and the founder, owner and chairman of Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) the operator of a fleet of about 700 container vessels. The Geneva-based company calls at around 500 ports worldwide. It also controls MSC Cruises, the world’s largest closely held cruise company, and has a majority stake in port management company Terminal Investment.
Aponte’s fortune is derived from closely held Mediterranean Shipping, which operates a fleet of about 700 container vessels and calls at 500 ports around the world, according to its website. The company has three main divisions: container fleet MSC, port operator Terminal Investment and MSC Cruises, the world’s biggest privately-owned cruise line, according its website.
MSC’s container fleet is included based on the asset value of its vessels as of April 2023, excluding charters, according to London-based VesselsValue.com, an online ship valuation database. A discount of 60% is applied to reflect a typical debt level shipowners hold in their fleets, according to a person familiar with the sector who asked not to be identified as detailed information isn’t available for MSC. He’s the sole owner of the Geneva-based business.
The company sold a 35% stake in Terminal Investments for $1.9 billion in April 2013, based on a report cited by Bloomberg. MSC retains a 65% stake in the business, which is valued using reported financial results and the average enterprise value-to-Ebitda, enterprise value-to-sales and price-to-earnings multiples of four publicly traded peers: Hutchison Port Holdings Trust, China Merchants Port Holdings Co Ltd, Abu Dhabi Ports Co PJSC and International Container Terminal Services Inc.
MSC also completed the purchase of Bollore SA’s Africa transport and logistics business in 2022 for about $5.5 billion excluding debt. A liability is included to account for the acquisition cost.
MSC’s cruise ship unit is valued using financial results and the average enterprise value-to-sales multiple of three publicly traded peers: Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd and Carnival Corp.
The valuation was updated to add financials for MSC’s Terminal Investments unit on May 10, 2023, leading to a rise of about $7 billion.
Giles Broom, a spokesman for MSC, didn’t respond to a request for comment on Aponte’s net worth.
Biography
Gianluigi Aponte was born in Sorrento, Italy, in 1940. His father, who’d opened a hotel in Somalia, died five years later. The orphan, whose family had been sailors for more than 300 years, returned to Italy and studied at his hometown’s nautical institute. He joined Achille Lauro, the Naples-to-Capri ferry fleet, and eventually became a captain.
He met his wife, Swiss-born Raffaela Diamond Pinas, when she was a passenger on-board, and the couple moved to Geneva in 1969. A year later, he raised $280,000 to buy Patricia, a German freighter, and established the Mediterranean Shipping Co. Another cargo ship, Raffaela, followed a year later.
Aponte’s fleet had expanded to 20 cargo ships by the 1980s, which the billionaire sold to move into container shipping. He diversified into cruise lines after buying Achille Lauro’s cruise fleet in 1987, renaming it MSC Cruises in 1995. Five years later, he founded Terminal Investment, which invests in and manages container ports worldwide, each of which often counts MSC as its biggest customer.
Apart from public appearances for the company, such as christenings of new MSC cruise ships and the sale of a 35 percent stake in Terminal Investment for $1.9 billion in April 2013, Aponte rarely appears in the press. He lives with his wife in Geneva. His children, Diego and Alexa, both work at MSC.
Honours
In 2009, at the Teatro di San Carlo of Naples, he received, along with Fabio Cannavaro, Ambra Vallo and others, a prize for “Neapolitan Excellence in the World” from then-Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
In 2012, he won the Cruise International Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his long term activity in the industry.
In October 2013, he received Containerisation International’s Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as a knighthood, the Order of Merit for Labour, from Italian President Giorgio Napolitano. The Aponte family have featured prominently in the Lloyd’s List Top 100 most influential people in the shipping industry, named in the top 10 in 2014 and in position 16 in 2018.
Milestones
- 1940 Gianluigi Aponte is born in Sorrento, Italy.
- 1945 Company begins a 5.5 billion-euro investment program to build up fleet.
- 1969 Buys first ship, Patricia, and founds MSC.
- 1970 Founds Mediterranean Shipping Co. with purchase of a German freighter.
- 1985 MSC cruise ship Achille Lauro hijacked by Palestine Liberation Front.
- 1995 Cruise line division renamed MSC Cruises.
- 2000 Creates Terminal Investment, which manages container terminals worldwide.
- 2014 Hands control of MSC over to his son, Diego.
