Swiss CEVA Logistics is to buy out the freight management business of CMA CGM, its biggest shareholder as part of its growth plans to achieve global revenues of more than $9bn by 2021.

As part of the wider growth plans, CEVA has also hired Nicolas Sartini to be COO and deputy CEO from January. He is currently acting CEO of the CMA CGM APL business.

CEVA chief executive Xavier Urbain said: “With the support of our strategic partner CMA CGM, I am proud to open a new chapter for CEVA Logistics and announce that we can accelerate our transformation and turnaround action plan in the next three years and beyond. This can be achieved by a combination of our commercial and sales focus, cross selling with CMA CGM customers, our own productivity actions, the integration of CMA CGM Log within CEVA and sharing resources with CMA CGM in the field of procurement and administrative functions.

“I am very happy to welcome Nicolas who has successfully turned around the APL shipping company as my Deputy and COO.”