Qatar is offering to invest $1 billion in France's heavily-indebted CMA CGM, the world's third-biggest shipping group, a report said.

The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) has offered the equivalent of EUR740 million ($1 billion) in the form of loan guarantees, French business magazine La Lettre de l'Expansion reported.

'CMA is in discussion with the Qatar fund,' a source close to the matter said, according to a report in our sister newspaper, the Gulf Daily News.

An agreement could be reached by the northern hemisphere summer.

The report said that Qatar was considering whether to use its investment in CMA CGM as part of its planned maritime hub in the port of Doha, the report said.

CMA CGM, one of the leading private sector employers in the southern French port city of Marseille, is a family-owned business headed by its founder Jacques Saade.

In November, Saade said that the group, which owns 360 ships and employs 16,400 people, was seeking capital from investment funds and needed between $300 million and $400 million.

Creditor banks agreed to provide the group, which was saddled with more than $5 billion in debt, with loans worth $500 million in December in exchange for a management reorganisation. – TradeArabia News Service