The collective catering group Sodexo, a world giant in its sector, announced the death of its founder and honorary president Pierre Bellon, Monday in Paris, at the age of 92, in a press release.
Born in 1930 in Marseille, Pierre Bellon founded Sodexo in 1966, a company which he made a heavyweight until hoisting it into the CAC 40. He retained his position as CEO until September 2005 and left the presidency. of the group in 2016, leaving this position to his daughter Sophie Bellon.
“Our father was a builder, a pioneer, a free spirit who was never afraid of risk taking,” said the latter on Monday. It is also Sophie Bellon who has been acting as interim general manager of the group since October 1, a position vacant since the departure of Denis Machuel, who left his post at the end of September.
A cheeky entrepreneur
Father of four children and grandfather thirteen times, Pierre Bellon was 10 years old when he lost his mother and entered a Jesuit college. Determined to do HEC, he will have to do it four times before winning his entry ticket.
With his diploma in hand, he returned to Marseille and joined his father’s company which supplied the boats on the Marseille-Algiers line with food. But, for this ambitious man, the sector of the future is the one that Jacques Borel has just created: collective catering.
For 100,000 francs granted by his father, he created his meal tray company called Sodexo, a hotel operating company (which became Sodexo in 2008). He delivers his meals with his van in Marseille. Then, with the nerve and the beard of his already established competitors, he obtained the contract for the new cafeteria of the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in Pierrelatte (Drôme) in 1964.
A behemoth present in 60 countries
In 1969, he “went up” to Paris with his wife and children. Managing his business “to the penny”, according to a relative, he broke with the sacrosanct principle – not to go into debt and to develop solely through internal growth – in 1995 with the acquisition of the British Gardner Merchant for 700 million euros. and thus doubles the size of his company.
Three years later, he took over the collective catering branch of the American giant Marriott. With these acquisitions, Sodexo enters the court of large multinationals: a feat for its boss who admits to speaking English “like his feet and with his hands”.
With a market capitalization of 12 billion euros, Sodexo is now present in 58 countries, and has 412,000 employees. The group is active in catering (school, business or in medical settings, etc.), reception, cleaning, facility maintenance and concierge services.