Mediterranean Shipping Company expands local presence with new headquarters

The classic portico, trademark yellow paint and palmetto-dotted landscaping of the Mediterranean Shipping Company’s new headquarters on Mount Pleasant’s Long Point Road suggests the architecture of historic Charleston with a little bit of Italy thrown in.  It is also a reflection of the company’s rapid growth.

“We are moving two regional divisions to Mount Pleasant and we wanted to make a statement with the building,” said Sergio Fedilini, port manager for Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC).  “We wanted it to reflect the nature of the company, the Italian influence, but also the beautiful architecture of the Charleston area.  Later we want to relocate our cost control division here from New York.  It is a way for us to expand and still have some character, not like the 80^th floor of some [skyscraper] in New York.”

MSC is one of the fastest growing shipping companies in Charleston.  In 1993 the Italian ocean carrier began a modest weekly service between Charleston and the Mediterranean.  Now one of the Port of Charleston’s five largest customers, MSC is currently active in eight trade lanes, bringing more than 750,000 tons of cargo on 200 ships every year and offering service between Charleston and more than 100 countries around the world.

The new 20,000-square-foot regional headquarters building is the latest expansion of a company that, worldwide, has more than 6,000 employees.  Globally, Geneva-based MSC has a container fleet equivalent to over 380,000 20-foot shipping containers.  (In maritime parlance these are known as TEUs—twenty-foot equivalent units.) 

MSC’s agency network includes logistics centers in the U.S., Europe, South Africa, South America, the Far East and Australia. Since its founding in 1970, MSC has invested in crew training shipyards, container workshops, ship planning centers and dangerous cargo management centers, where worldwide control of hazardous cargo stowage is accomplished via a sophisticated computer system.

But despite its size and far-flung presence, the company’s commitment to customer satisfaction remains a primary calling.  “Since 1993 we have improved our back office operations.  We have improved the quality of our ships.  We have improved our intermodal systems,” said Nicola Arena, president and chief executive officer for MSC (USA).  “We are making these changes because of the benefits they bring our customers.  By focusing more and more on the customer’s needs we have been successful in this very demanding industry.”

In January the company launched the newest member of its fleet, MSC Diego, the first of five 4,100 TEU vessels under construction in Pusan, South Korea.  The company also has initiated a trans-Pacific container service that, according to Arena, is an important trade lane for meeting the needs of many of the company’s customers. 

“If we are to be a truly global operator, we have to provide this very valuable service for our global customers,” said Arena. “We realize the financial situation is not ideal, but we are confident that South East Asia, Korea and Japan will all gradually resume their imports.  Our economic indicators are good, so the time is right for MSC.”

Locally, MSC’s expansion allows the company’s equipment control and intramodal divisions to be headquartered under the same roof as the marine operations divisions already in place.  The move will bring the number of people at the Long Point Road office to thirty.  “When we bring our cost control division from New York and are finished with the expansion we will have about 60 people in this building,” said Fedelini.

MSC joins more than three dozen private transportation companies that have offices in the Town of Mount Pleasant.

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