In brief: Geodis will not sell Bourgey-Montreuil

Posted on March 6, 2008 by Matthieu Desiderio

The French transport and logistic company Geodis, partly controlled by SNCF, the French National railway operator that owns 43% of the shares, once planned to sell its subsidiary more commonly know as Bourgey-Montreuil or Geodis BM. Geodis BM is a holding company with interests in the provision of international and national haulage and logistics services to the chemicals and gas, industrial, automobile, press and distribution sectors.

Because of results lower than expected, Pierre Blayau, Chairman and CEO of Geodis, announced six month ago it would sell this part of his company’s activity. They first tried to sell the subsidiary to its management team through a leveraged buy out process, but this manoeuvre failed, and strong unions positions made it difficult for Geodis to find an external private buyer.

Since then, the financial situation of Bourgey-Montreuil improved, with higher benefit margin thanks to improved cost management policies and the ability to transfer higher gasoline costs to its customers. When Geodis presented its FY2007 results, Pierre Blayau announced the sale of Bourgey-Montreuil was not anymore in the company’s agenda. With the newly signed contract with Nestlé Waters, in partnership with Transalliance, Geodis now wishes to pep up Bourgey-Montreuil.