The billionaire shipowning Saade clan now has a fortune of $21.6bn after the container ship boom.
This is according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The assessment comes as the Saades change the top management at Merit France, its family office, to deal with the windfall, a move flagged in December.
A filing reported by Bloomberg showed that Michel Sirat, 62, has now taken over as head of the company from Joseph Dakkak, who has resigned.
Sirat was the chief financial officer of the Saades’ giant container line CMA CGM until December last year.
Dakkak is expected to head CMA CGM’s regional office in Lebanon, a source told Bloomberg.
Sirat still oversees mergers and acquisitions and strategy at CMA CGM.
He was replaced as CFO by Ramon Fernandez, who was finance chief at phone company Orange.
Rodolphe Saade, the son of founder Jacques Saade, is chief executive of the French shipping company.
The group has been diversifying into air freight and the wider logistics sector, as well as media.
Its most recent deal was to buy Bollore’s logistics arm in a deal with an enterprise value of €5bn ($5.5bn).
Controlled by siblings
The chief executive, 53, sister Tanya, 55, and brother Jacques, 51, own 73% of CMA CGM, held through Merit France.
The siblings’ father immigrated with his family to Marseille from Lebanon and started the shipping company in 1978 with one leased vessel.
Dakkak was a trusted executive for the group’s late founder and was hired in 2015 when Merit France was still based in Lebanon.