International port operator Yilport Holding announced on Monday it has hired veteran liner executive Nicolas Sartini to serve as its co-chief executive officer.
Sartini will be running Yilport alongside founder, chairman and CEO Robert Yuksel Yildirim with a view to “expand… [its] global footprint and high-service quality,” the company said in a press release.
The appointment entered into effect on 25 January.
Sartini, born in Paris in 1961, spent most of its career at CMA CGM, which he joined in 1989.
A trusted lieutenant of CMA CGM’s Saade family, Sartini held several positions within the group, including some chief executive at APL Inc after CMA CGM purchased that company in 2017.
In 2019 Sartini was tasked with turning around CEVA Logistics, another newly acquired unit. The logistics outfit received a €300m ($364m) capital injection in 2020 and contributed a $17.5m loss to CMA CGM’s overall results, according to interim financial statements covering the first nine months of the year.
Sartini’s final position at CMA CGM last year was that of executive vice president for ports and terminals.
Sartini and Yildirim are no strangers. Yildirim Holding, the parent of Yilport, holds a 24% stake in CMA CGM. Yildirim became a shareholder in the French boxship owner between 2010 and 2011, when he invested $600m in the company.
“I am excited to join Yilport’s journey towards ranking among the top ten global container terminal operators by 2025 under Robert Yuksel Yildirim’s vision,” Sartini said in the press relase.
Yildirim welcomed Sartini, saying that he “will have a key role in our company to reach our strategic goals”.
Istanbul-based Yilport is the only Turkish company to be listed among international port operators. It operates 22 terminals worldwide in ten countries.
Those include boxship ports in its home country Turkey, as well as in Sweden, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Ecuador. In the central Mediterranean, Yilport operates in Taranto, Italy, and has a 50% stake in the Malta Freeport.
“We are looking forward to grow throughput and enlarge some of our terminals for greater handling capacities,” Yildirim said.
Christian Blauert, a previous ports expert who served as Yilport CEO, moved on last year to a senior position with Moffat & Nichol, a US-based infrastructure advisor.
