French caterer Elior Group takes acquisition route to enter India

MUMBAI: French multinational commercial catering and food service company Elior Group has made its foray into Indian market with acquisitions of MegaBite Food Services and C Ramachandra Caterers. The French group has wholly acquired MegaBite, and bought a majority stake in CRamachandra Caterers.

After the acquisitions of the two companies with combined revenue of over $30 million, Elior India now employs over 3,500 people and serves about 135,000 meals per day. The company’s global revenue stood at 5.67 billion euro for the year ended 2014-15, with operations in 13 countries and 18,600 restaurants and points of sale.

MegaBite counts Google and McKinsey as its customers, while C Ramachandra Caterers’ customer base includes Daimler, MRF, Ashok Leyland and Caterpillar.

Philippe Salle, Elior Group Chairman, said: “This move in India allows us to expand into emerging countries, which is one of the strategic objectives of our 2016-2020 plans. We believe, India is an extremely promising market with a reported CAGR growth in excess of 15% per annum for the catering industry. The combined acquisitions will position Elior among the top three caterers in the Indian market.”

Sanjay Kumar, CEO of Elior India, said: “We are making our Asia foray through India, which is the best investment destination currently. The size of the market is $2.7-3.2 billion and it is still fragmented.

Definitely, there is going to be more consolidation and you’ll see more acquisitions in the months to come. Implementation of Goods & Services Tax (GST) will be a big enabler for this, as it will allow more optimisation of logistics.”