Zodiac Maritime: Eyal Ofer's Tanker Empire & Iranian Attacks

Zodiac Maritime is the London-based tanker and container shipping company owned by Eyal Ofer, ranked by Forbes as Israel's wealthiest person with a fortune of $28.2 billion. Eyal Ofer is a cousin of Idan Ofer, the shipping magnate behind ZIM and Eastern Pacific Shipping, making Zodiac Maritime a separate branch of the same Ofer shipping dynasty. Zodiac-linked vessels have been repeatedly attacked, hijacked and seized by Iran since 2021 in what analysts describe as a maritime shadow war.

Who owns Zodiac Maritime, and how is it related to ZIM?

Zodiac Maritime is part of the Zodiac Group, owned by Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer, according to Seatrade Maritime. Eyal Ofer is a cousin of Idan Ofer, whose Kenon Holdings controls ZIM Integrated Shipping Services and whose Quantum Pacific Group owns Eastern Pacific Shipping, discussed in Olam's coverage of that fleet. The two Ofer shipping operations are entirely separate companies under separate branches of the family, and neither Zodiac's ownership nor its fleet has any connection to ZIM's contested sale to Hapag-Lloyd.

Eyal Ofer was ranked as Israel's richest person by Forbes, with a fortune of $28.2 billion, and is active across a range of industries beyond shipping, according to the Times of Israel. Zodiac Maritime itself operates as a ship manager and charterer rather than always holding direct title to every vessel it operates; several Zodiac-linked ships are owned by other parties and managed commercially by Zodiac.

Why have Zodiac-linked vessels been targeted so often?

Zodiac-managed vessels have been targeted repeatedly since July 2021, when the Mercer Street, a Liberia-flagged, Japanese-owned oil tanker managed by Zodiac Maritime, was struck by what a US official described as a suicide drone off the coast of Oman, killing a British and a Romanian crew member, according to the Times of Israel. Israeli and British officials blamed Iran for the attack, in what analysts characterized as part of an ongoing shadow war between Israel and Iran playing out at sea.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Navy seized the MSC Aries, a Portuguese-flagged container ship managed by Zodiac Maritime, near the Strait of Hormuz in April 2024, according to CNN. The ship had 25 crew aboard and had turned off its tracking data, a practice the Times of Israel described as common for Israeli-affiliated vessels moving through the region. Iran's state news agency IRNA said the vessel was "managed by Zodiac, which belongs to the Zionist capitalist Eyal Ofer," and Iranian judiciary officials later demanded a $170 million fine from Ofer personally, accusing him of financing terrorism, according to the Times of Israel.

Three separate Israeli-linked vessels were attacked within a single week in 2024, with one Zodiac-managed tanker seized by armed individuals before its crew retreated to the vessel's citadel and radioed the US Navy for help, according to Seatrade Maritime. No group claimed responsibility, though reports linked the incident to Houthi forces.

How does this compare to attacks on other Ofer-linked shipping?

The MSC Aries seizure may have been Iran's first direct seizure of an Israeli-linked vessel, but attacks on Israel-linked shipping in the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman have continued in the years since, with vessels linked to Zodiac Maritime, Eastern Pacific Shipping, and Ray Shipping, the owner of the Galaxy Leader car carrier hijacked by Houthi forces in November 2023, all targeted using one-way attack drones, limpet mines and rocket-propelled projectiles, according to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

That pattern means Israeli-linked shipping risk is not concentrated in a single company or a single branch of the Ofer family. Both Idan Ofer's Eastern Pacific Shipping and Eyal Ofer's Zodiac Maritime have had vessels struck, despite operating as fully independent companies with no shared corporate ownership, which is consistent with the war-risk insurance dynamic described in Olam's coverage of that market: underwriters price perceived Israeli ownership connection itself as the risk factor, regardless of which specific company or family branch controls a given vessel.

What should readers track next on Zodiac Maritime?

Three signals will show whether the pattern of attacks on Zodiac-linked vessels continues or changes. First, whether Iran's judiciary proceeds with its claimed $170 million fine and terrorism-financing case against Eyal Ofer personally, since a formal prosecution would mark an escalation beyond vessel seizures into direct personal legal targeting. Second, whether Zodiac Maritime changes its operational practices, such as flag-state selection or route planning, in response to continued targeting. Third, whether the frequency of attacks on Zodiac-linked shipping tracks the broader Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz security environment described in Olam's coverage of Israeli shipping war-risk insurance, or instead reflects targeting specific to the Ofer family name.