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Costa Group and Medov's parent form ground-breaking port agency partnership

Costa Group and Medov's parent form ground-breaking port agency partnership
Costa Group formed a 50/50 partnership with I.L. Investimenti srl, the holding company managing the shipping activities of the Genoese Schenone family, to create its own port operations agency network for southern France and Italy.

The new CostaMed Ship Services, which will start in January, will be headquartered in Savona, co-ordinating a network of agencies operating in each of the 26 ports across Italy and southern France.

It will handle more than 1,100 Costa Group ships in the 26 ports during the first year of operations.

'We are very proud and honored to enter into such a ground-breaking initiative with Costa Group,' said Giulio Schenone, chairman and ceo of I.L. Investimenti srl, which manages interests including the familiy's shipping services business through Medov port agency and logistics and tour operating companies such as Medov Logistics, MedSupplies and Seatrain, the latter managing the Roma Express private train.

Medov port agency began as general agents of AIDA Cruises and then as agents and logistics operators at Giglio island for the Concordia removal project between 2012-2014.

More recently the company was appointed agent for Costa and AIDA vessels at Venice and Civitavecchia.

'Partnerships of this nature are more common in other sectors of the shipping world, however this is the very first of its kind in the cruise industry and we are very determined to achieve the common objectives,' explained Schenone, who will also be the president of the new jv company.

'The main tasks are to create efficiencies, improve services quality and strengthen the direct relationship with strategic ports,' he added.

CostaMed will be a stand-alone entity with its own personnel from other Medov offices around Italy and southern France, including Venice, Civitavecchia, Livorno, Marseille, Nice and Monaco. It will directly manage port agency services for the Costa Group in Savona but as far as Seatrade Cruise News understands, sub-agency selection is on-going between the established Medov network and other port agencies already used by Costa Group.