ONE OF THE FRENCH LEADERS IN THEME-BASED RESTAURANTS, SPECIALISED IN MUSSELS AND CHIPS

Léon de Bruxelles is a major French player in theme-based restaurants. With 60 restaurants, of which only one franchise, Léon de Bruxelles is the Belgian bistro specialist, offering recipes focusing on mussels and other Belgian products (beers, waffles...)

2010 turnover: 104.7 million euros

Michel Morin,
Chairman of the Executive Board

"Eurazeo pme is a partner that will be working with us over the long term, to further the development we began in early 2006. With greater peace of mind, we can now envisage external growth in the area of 5 new restaurants per year. At any time, the presence and attention of the various actors are indisputable. It's important for a rapidly growing company to be able to exchange new points of view, visions and experiences, but without getting involved in our day-to-day management."

Established as the specialist for mussels, Léon de Bruxelles selects the best mussels available at any time. As the seasons progress, its procurements come from selected areas throughout Europe; freshly harvested at sea, the fresh mussels are delivered to all of the French chain's restaurants. Over the years, Léon de Bruxelles has also built a true quality network with the partners that supply its flagship product, mussels. Over and above this confidence-based contract, Léon can offer its clientele mussels that are prepared to order... traditionally in a cast-iron casserole, a la plancha with the greatest simplicity, but also "en papillote" or "au gratin" for true connoisseurs.

Prospects
In terms of growth projects, the group plans to continue its momentum by opening 5 or 6 restaurants per year, aiming for more than 100 by 2017.
2008: 4 restaurants were opened (Creil, Beauvais, Le Mans, Chartres)
2009: 6 restaurants (Valenciennes, Amiens, Troyes, Lyon, Metz, Besançon)
2010: 4 restaurants (Brétigny-sur-Orge, Besançon, Lille-Lezennes, Nantes)
I.e. numerical growth of nearly 25% over the course of these 3 years
2011 : 7 openings planed
The growth potential defined for the subsequent years is approximately the same, which means 5 to 6 new restaurants with additional coverage of the Paris region, leading to a network of 120 restaurants in the coming years (by 2015).

Léon de Bruxelles has implemented a refurbishment programme for first-generation restaurants and opened new and smaller restaurants in 2010, to strengthen the group's development in medium-sized cities and therefore increase the coverage potential. Moreover, Léon de Bruxelles always places emphasis on customer well-being and satisfaction, which has led to refurbish the internal layout of its restaurants, around the "Belgitude" and comics. The group's marketing campaigns have met with a certain degree of success in the past few years.

Léon de Bruxelles expects to surpass the symbolic mark of 1'500 employees in 2011, which means that it will have doubled its staff in five years.

Sustainable Development

An assessment performed in 2008 with Eurazeo pme revealed that Léon de Bruxelles was considerably progressive, particularly in the social and social responsibility aspects. The company became more aware of the topic with its Bilan Carbone® conducted in 2009, leading to the set-up of a Sustainable Development Department, which is represented on the Management Committee.

The Commitment of Léon de Bruxelles is translated into the company-wide project TRACE: Transparency, Respect, Autonomy, Conviviality, Standards. The social policy implemented since 2002 by the current management team is human orientated and focused on the individual and collective development of employees, with locally-geared management. The implementation of an employee satisfaction survey and the creation of a new in-house newsletter reflect management's efforts to act at a local level and continuously promote social dialogue.

This will, coupled with a careful policy on training, internal promotion, compensation and diversity led to reduce the employee turnover from 120% to 42.5% between 2002 and 2010, which is to be considered as an example in this industry.

Léon de Bruxelles is actively pursuing its diversity policy (30% of its employees are foreign nationals, 30 are disabled) and has signed a partnership agreement with the foundation "Agir contre l'exclusion" (Act against Exclusion) to foster the integration of disadvantaged youth.

As for the environment, the company initiated a programme to reduce its ecological footprint and intends to improve the energy efficiency of buildings and the change in behavior and involvement of employees.

Léon de Bruxelles renewed its partnership with the foundation "Mouvement pour les Villages d'Enfants" for the third year in a row.