Le Pain Quotidien will once again be entirely Belgian, after the food group Norac, owned by French entrepreneur Bruno Caron, transferred its interest to other historical shareholders, L'Echo reported on Friday, basing its story on good sources.
Bruno Caron initially held 15% of the shares and progressively increased his holding to 25%. The other shareholders are said to have redeemed their shares in proportion to their shareholding. This move resulted in the holding of the main shareholder Cobepa - more than half of which is owned by the Spoelberch family, also one of AB InBev's shareholders - rising from 32% to 43%.
The remaining shares are in the hands of a few entrepreneurs: the Josi family, Emiel Lathouwers (ex-A.S. Adventure), Tony Vandewalle and Bart Van Vooren (ex-O'Neill Belgique) and its founder Alain Coumont.
L'Echo also learned the CEO of the chain will once again be Belgian. Kortrijkian Vincent Herbert who, following 17 years spent as head of the firm, had quit his job of CEO in 2018.
The Belgian succeeds the American Jerry Gomez (formerly of Burger King and Walmart), with whom Le Pain Quotidien's board of directors were having differences of opinion concerning growth strategy.
What they disagreed about, however, is unknown.
The Brussels Times
