Sodexo: meet the heir who joined the company – 03/28/2024 – Market

It’s time for the next generation to step up in the Bellon family’s 58-year-old empire. The French group Sodexo appointed Laszlo Szabo, 31, to the board of Pluxee (formerly Sodexo Benefits and Incentives), which is one of the company’s arms and went public in February.

Szabo is the grandson of Pierre Bellon, founder of Sodexo and who died in 2022. The company is facing one of its biggest transformations since its creation in 1966.

Laszlo Szabo is the only one of his generation so far to take on a role of this size in the clan’s companies, providing a clue as to how succession planning is reaching the third generation of the family.

“We started training the grandchildren as shareholders through site visits and in strategy,” said Sophie Bellon, 62, CEO of Sodexo. “It’s important that they know the company.”

The Bellon family is worth $6.1 billion, according to Bloomberg’s billionaire rankings, and has been reshaping its empire since the patriarch’s death at age 92 in 2022 and Sophie’s rise to CEO.

Unlike some ultra-wealthy dynasties, the French family has so far avoided any public feuds between heirs. But the Bellons have reached a crucial point where the coming-of-age generation needs to take on more influential roles if the business is to remain under family operational control.

Szabo, one of the co-founders of a blockchain infrastructure provider, is now one of four family members on Pluxee’s 10-member board, along with his mother, uncle and aunt.

Sodexo’s participation

The bulk of his fortune is the result of a nearly 43% stake — with 58% voting rights — in Paris-listed Sodexo. This stock’s 7.9% rise since the beginning of February compares with Pluxee’s 9.5% decline, in which they hold a similar stake.

Sodexo’s market capitalization was 15.4 billion euros ($16.7 billion) before the split, and both companies combined are now worth about 400 million euros more than that.

It is not yet known whether the split will have any long-term consequences. Still, the move is a sign that Sophie Bellon is leaving her mark on the company.

The family’s tight control over Sodexo and Pluxee through its parent company Bellon was reinforced by a 2015 agreement between the deceased founder, his wife Danielle, 84, and their children “to prevent their direct descendants from freely disposing of his Bellon shares for 50 years”.

“This allows us to have a long-term strategy without management being under constant pressure,” said Sophie. “Of course we have to be competitive, but there is no strategic change every time there is a new boss.”

The reason behind splitting Sodexo, which the founder built over decades through geographic expansion and acquisitions, was to unlock the value of Pluxee, according to the prospectus.

The company estimates that the global market for its cards used in meal vouchers and food vouchers, for example, is potentially worth up to 1 trillion euros. Pluxee is the second largest operator in the world, behind Edenred, which separated from Accor in 2010.

The family’s holding company plans to play an “active” role in Pluxee, choosing the chief executive and chief financial officer, as well as consulting services, according to the listing document.

The division between children

The family has been closely involved in the company’s operations since Pierre Bellon started a business in his hometown of Marseille, providing meals to employees of companies in the French city.

It has since expanded into schools, hospitals and prisons, acquired competitors and entered into facilities management and high-end dining with Lenotre, which is offering 11-kilogram carved chocolate Easter eggs for 950 euros each.

Three of Pierre’s four children began working at Sodexo in the mid-1990s. Sophie, the eldest, joined the finance department after working in New York in the fashion industry and as a mergers and acquisitions executive at Credit Lyonnais bank.

His sister Nathalie, 60, worked in the food service industry before joining the family business. Brother François-Xavier, 58, held different roles at Sodexo before becoming head of UK and Ireland in 2004. He resigned a few months later for health reasons and now leads the parent company.

“My father raised us saying ‘You don’t mix organizational charts with family trees,'” said Sophie Bellon. “Everyone felt free to do what they wanted to do.”

However, in 2011, he called a meeting of the four brothers, saying he wanted one of them to succeed him as president, but that it was up to them to choose who. After a long process involving a committee of independent directors, Sophie was appointed and took up the role in 2016.

The unity desired by the founder has so far been maintained under Sophie’s leadership. Nathalie leads Sodexo Live!, which serves VIP lounges at airports, stadiums and conferences, and is contracted to supply the Olympic Village at the Paris Olympics.

François-Xavier is chairman of Bellon’s board of directors, while Astrid, 54, has left the board of Sodexo and is an advisor at the family’s Pierre Bellon Foundation.

Tense relations

The apparent harmony contrasts with some other wealthy families facing feuds like the Murdochs, from whom the HBO series Succession is loosely inspired. France’s Dassault clan also has a history of tension between third-generation heirs, while John Elkann, head of Italy’s Agnelli automobile dynasty, is embroiled in a dispute with his mother.

“I haven’t watched it,” Bellon said of Succession. “I prefer shows about hospitals and doctors because that’s out of my league.”

With his appointment as director of Pluxee, nephew Laszlo Szabo, who is Nathalie’s son, is bringing an atypical background to the board.

He approached the cryptocurrency industry after earning a diploma in hotel management in Glion, Switzerland, and hearing about bitcoin in a Tokyo nightclub.

Inspired by his business-minded family, he founded a technology recruitment company in Marseille in 2015 and three years later co-founded Kiln, which uses blockchain to bet on cryptocurrencies.

“My dad is an entrepreneur and he taught me that you can have bad grades in school, but if you create a successful company, everything will be fine,” Szabo said in an interview last year with PyratzLabs. “I got really bad grades, but it’s okay.”