Sodexo buoyed by Royal Guard's laundry, IBM toilets

   The guards at Buckingham Palace are wearing uniforms laundered by the world’s secondlargest caterer, Sodexo. The French company also cleans toilets at IBM’s call center in India and trims the lawns for Air France-KLM in the Netherlands.
   Sodexo started a five-year, 250 million-euro ($372 million) contract in 2007 with the Dutch airline, among a growing number of companies seeking outsourcing services to ease the pinch of higher energy and labor costs on margins. Facilities management, which made up 18 per cent of Sodexo’s 2007 revenue of 13 billion euros, will grow to 40 percent by 2015, spokesman Jean-Charles Trehan said. The company is based in Issy-les-Moulineux, France. Sodexo’s outsourcing business is growing faster than catering because the “more fragmented’’ market means less competition, Trehan said. The worldwide facilities-management market is worth 400 billion euros and catering is worth 250 billion euros, though the margins are similar, Sodexo said.
   Corporate business accounts for a third of facilitiesmanagement revenue. The biggest portion comes from colleges, retirement homes and medical centers including York Central Hospital in Toronto and the Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital in North Carolina, where Sodexo provides maintenance for CTscan machines. Those establishments are less affected by economic cycles, Oddo & Cie’s Rascoussier said.
   Outsourcing through Sodexo saves KLM about 10 percent annually in material and labor costs, said Jeroen Mol, Sodexo’s manager for the KLM contract. The French company provides 41 services, including crew uniforms, waste removal and watering plants in KLM’s offices.
   Sodexo also serves food to the U.S. Marines Corps at more than 50 military bases. It provided “logistical support’’ services to troops during Desert Storm and Operation Joint Endeavor in Bosnia and Croatia.
   “Our big clients want to have a single partner who takes care of everything,’’ Trehan said. “They don’t want to deal with 20 different service providers. We are cheaper and more efficient at the same time.’’
   The facilities-management unit complements the catering business, helping Sodexo cement relationships with clients, according to Andre Juillard, an analyst at Parisbased Natixis who has a “buy’’ recommendation on the company.
   When the French company first got into facilities management, “all the competitors were making fun of Sodexo, and now, they’re all doing it,’’ Juillard said. “It helps them retain their clients and pick up more business.’’ AGENCIES