Born January 24, 1930 in Marseille, he had created anyone in 1966 in Marseille, the company, become fifty-five years later a world number one collective catering.
Le Monde with AFP
Founder of the Sodexo Collective Restoration Company, Pierre Bellon, died, Monday, January 31, 92 years old. Born January 24, 1930 in Marseille, he had created anyone in 1966 in Marseille, the company became fifty-five years later number one world of collective catering, which he remained the CEO until September 2005, more than 75 years old.
The group today claims a market capitalization of 12 billion euros, which affirms to employ 412,000 employees in 56 countries.
“Our Father was a builder, a pioneer, a free spirit that risk taking never frightened,” said his daughter on Monday, Sophie Bellon, Chairman of the Board of Directors and General Director of the Acting Group. .
In the big multinational courtyard
Father of four children and grandfather thirteen times, he is 10 when he loses his mother and enters a college of Jesuits. Determined to study at HEC, the School of Higher Commercial Studies, it will have to regain it to four times before giving up its entrance ticket.
Diploma in a pocket, he returns to Marseille and integrates the paternal company, which supplies in food the boats of the Marseille-Algiers line. But for this ambitious young man, the sector of the future is the one just created Jacques Borel: the collective catering.
For 100,000 francs granted by his father, he creates his business trays called Sodexho, for “hotel operating company” (become Sodexo in 2008). He delivers his meals with his van in Marseille.
Then, to the pellet and beard of his competitors already implanted, he obtained the contract of the new cafeteria of the Atomic Energy Commissioner of Pierrelatte (Drôme) in 1964. In 1969, he “goes up” in Paris with Woman and children.
Manager his company “At nesting penny”, according to a loved one, he breaks with the Sacro-Saint Principe – do not go into debt and develop only by internal growth – in 1995, with the acquisition of the Britannic Gardner Merchant for 700 million euros, and doubles the size of its company. Three years later, he seizes the collective restoration branch of the American Marriott. With these acquisitions, Sodexho enters the big multinational courtyard – a feat for his boss, who admits to speak English “like his feet and with his hands”.
Party “of nothing in 1966”
Jovial, all rounds and with his pace of graft, Pierre Bellon knows how to attract the sympathies. He has fun playing naive, and his insatiable curiosity leads him to fill entire notebooks.
His anger are also formidable: his collaborators, his family, everyone passes. Including about twenty trade unionists in 2011, who came to disrupt the general meeting of shareholders, which he sent to “show”, repeating that he was gone “nothing in 1966”.
Paternalist, the man, the commander of the Legion of Honor and the National Order of Merit, needed to be surrounded by people of confidence, hence his reluctance to resort to external promotion.
His succession has long been a taboo subject. He ended up adouber, in 2005, Michel Landel for twenty years at Sodexho, himself becoming honorary president.
Pierre Bellon was one of the CNPF managers, the National Council of French Employers and Medef. He is originally in 1987 for the creation of the management development association whose mission is: “The progress of the company by the progress of the leader”