CMA CGM will become the liner operators exclusive commercial carrier on the transpacific trade.
The French carrier will take over the operations of its Singapore subsidiary APL on the trade from 1 October.
The move will mean the removal of the APL brand from all of its former liner trades except for the US government flag services.
It comes four years after CMA CGM took over APL through the purchase of its parent company — Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) — in September 2016.
Under the restructuring, APL will focus exclusively on its US-flag services on the Guam-Pacific trade.
These are operated on behalf of the US Government with six ships of between 5,500 teu and 7,400 teu.
NOL renamed
The reorganisation also involves the renaming of NOL as CMA CGM Asia Pacific Ltd, which will be based in Singapore.
It will oversee the intra-Asia shortsea services of another subsidiary, CNC, whose business was shifted from Taiwan to Singapore last year.
It will also take charter of ANL Container Line's operations in the Oceania region.
The removal of the APL brand is the culmination of more than a year of planning during which CMA CGM has quietly dropped the name from several key routes.
APL ceased serving the Asia-Europe and transatlantic trades in late 2019, with its services allocated to CMA CGM.
The APL brand exited the Oceania trade in January, when services were taken over by ANL.
More recently, the brand was removed from the trades serving the Indian subcontinent, Middle East, Red Sea and Latin America.
"This simplification fortifies the group’s number-one position in the country while enabling us to build upon APL’s rich heritage of US flagship operations and service to the United States Government," said Ed Aldridge, president of CMA CGM and APL in the US.
Other brands operated by CMA CGM include Brazilian cabotage operator Mercosul Lines and intra-Europe operator Containerships.
