Billionaire Aponte passes on shipping giant MSC to heirs

[GENEVA] Gianluigi Aponte, the secretive Italian billionaire who founded and grew MSC Mediterranean Shipping into the world’s biggest container line, passed ownership to his two children.

Aponte, 85, made the transfer of the closely held company to son Diego and daughter Alexa in the last quarter of 2025, according to a statement on Monday (Apr 13). They are respectively president and chief financial officer, while their father will retain his role as executive chairman.

“The move ensures the continued stability and growth of the MSC Group of companies under the stewardship of the next generation,” it said. A spokesman declined to elaborate on the transaction beyond the statement.

The announcement opens a small window into the workings of the Geneva-based firm that has increasingly dominated worldwide shipping in recent years. MSC overtook rival Maersk as the world’s No 1 container line after the pandemic, and has recently been expanding into the oil tanker market.

The group controls about a fifth of global shipping capacity and has a sizeable share of the cruise line market. Aponte has a net worth of at least US$37 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Both heirs are Italian nationals who were brought up in Switzerland, where they are residents.

Panama Canal

Within the past year, Gianluigi Aponte emerged as a powerful broker in a port deal with Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, a purchase whose outcome is now uncertain. MSC teamed up with Blackrock for the US$19 billion acquisition of the two ports on either side of the Panama Canal – a deal driven in part by US President Donald Trump’s pressure to see the ports, previously owned by Hong Kong-based Hutchinson Whampoa, returned to ‘friendly’ hands.

Diego Aponte has also made inroads into Trump’s circle. He helped broker the November White House meeting of Swiss business leaders that paved the way for a preliminary accord to cut the 39 per cent tariffs imposed on Switzerland over the summer.

The world’s container lines have been thrust into global events in recent weeks during the war pitting the US and Israel against Iran. The blocking of the crucial Strait of Hormuz has seen valuable ships and cargo stuck in the Persian Gulf, meaning that Aponte’s move into oil tankers came just before a sharp jump in crude prices and demand for ships.

The Aponte family traces its seafaring roots back to 1675, according to its corporate website. Gianluigi Aponte was born near the Bay of Naples, where the family traditionally ferried goods and passengers.

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He trained as a ship’s captain and later operated ferries shuttling wealthy tourists to island resorts like Capri and Ischia. It was on one of those trips that he met his future wife, Rafaela Diamant, the daughter of a Swiss banker.

Aponte started MSC in 1970 after purchasing an old German break-bulk ship, and the following year he bought a second vessel, naming it after his wife.

He soon began buying secondhand container ships, some from scrapyards, as he looked to break into a business dominated by Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd. MSC gained a name for itself by offering better prices than competitors, even if delivery times were sometimes longer.

Cruise line

In the late 1980s, Aponte made the jump into the leisure segment, and MSC Cruises became the world’s third-largest cruise brand. Like his European shipping peers, Aponte pushed heavily into ports and logistics.

MSC’s pandemic-era profits fuelled a further rapid expansion drive, and by 2022 it had achieved its founder’s goal of becoming the world’s biggest container carrier. Aponte’s son Diego became MSC’s group president in 2014. BLOOMBERG