ANNUAL REPORT 2006-2007

04
> THE QUALITY OF LIFE ARCHITECT EXPERIENCING AND SHARING QUALITY OF LIFE
> Chairman’s Message
MESSAGE
OF PIERRE BELLON
AT THE ANNUAL SHAREHOLDERS’ MEETING,
JANUARY 22, 2008
Sodexho’s mission is to improve the Quality of Life of the 40 million
people we serve every day.
We seek to make our company and the Sodexho brand the most
desirable and attractive in all of our business segments.
At the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting, the Board of Directors is
asking the shareholders to approve a change in the company name
and a revision to the visual identity in the form of a new logo.
The change in the Group’s name involves eliminating the word “Alliance”
and the letter “h”. The name of the Group would therefore be SODEXO.
The elimination of the word “Alliance”
From 1995 to 2000, we made three major acquisitions to strengthen our international
network: Gardner Merchant in the United Kingdom, Partena in the Scandinavian
countries and Marriott Management Services in North America. These three
foodservices companies, all of them much older than Sodexho, had demonstrated
their success through the skills of their respective employee teams. It was important
not to break up these entities but, on the contrary, to help them develop further,
to recognize their merits, to welcome them on an equal footing and to avoid at all
costs creating opposition between the acquirers and the acquirees – in other words,
creating a perception of winners and losers. To be perfectly clear, as I said at the time:
“Money will not buy a company’s history, culture, skills and pride nor the motivation
of the women and men responsible for its success”.
Gradually, all three companies expressed a desire to adopt the name of Sodexho.
To gain their confi dence and to prove that we keep our promises, we added
the word “Alliance” to the Sodexho company name.
During Fiscal 2006, we took an employee engagement survey
in 35 countries, interviewing 78,000 staff members, including the entire
management and a sample of 20% of site employees. More than 80%
of our employees declared their attachment and their pride in
belonging to the Group and 83% stated they would not hesitate
to recommend Sodexho to a friend seeking employment.
It therefore seems to us that the word “Alliance” is no
longer necessary.