Company Case MSC Cruises: From One Second-Hand Ship to a Major World Player In 1970, Italian Gianluigi Aponte founded the Mediterranean Ship- ping Company (MSC) with a single second-hand ship and just $5,000 in capital to move cargo between Europe and Africa. De- spite a challenging, price-based competitive environment, MSC has since prospered and grown to become the world's second- largest container operator behind Maersk, with a fleet of over 400 ships and operations in 150 countries.
