Sofina, ''Société Financière de Transports et d'Entreprises Industrielles'', is a

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct language ...

holding company, headquartered in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

with offices in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

. As part of the

Bel20 The BEL 20 is the benchmark stock market index of Euronext Brussels. It tracks the performance of 20 most capitalized and liquid stocks traded in Belgium. In general, the index consists of a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 20 companies traded ...

index, it is one of the twenty largest capitalisation in Belgium. The company invests in several industrial sectors such as

telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than tha ...

(7%),

portfolio Portfolio may refer to: Objects * Portfolio (briefcase), a type of briefcase Collections * Portfolio (finance), a collection of assets held by an institution or a private individual * Artist's portfolio, a sample of an artist's work or a ...

companies,

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Becau ...

s and

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...

(6%),

private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a typ ...

(6%), services within the company (18%),

consumer goods A final good or consumer good is a final product ready for sale that is used by the consumer to satisfy current wants or needs, unlike a intermediate good, which is used to produce other goods. A microwave oven or a bicycle is a final good, but ...

(31%),

energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of hea ...

(6%),

food distribution Food distribution is the process where a general population is supplied with food. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) considers food distribution as a subset of the food system. The process and methodology behind food distribution varies ...

(8%) and various other sectors (10%). Geographically, Sofina has investments located in

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

, France, Luxembourg, the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, India and North America.

History

The company was founded in 1898. It was led from 1905 until 1955 by the Belgian-American engineer of German origin

Dannie Heineman Dannie N. Heineman (23 November 1872 – 31 January 1962) was a Belgian-American engineer and businessman. He was the managing director and controlling shareholder of the Belgian industrial multinational Sofina. He was a prolific sponsor of s ...

(1872-1962). Historically, the company owned the

Anglo-Argentine Tramways Company The Anglo-Argentine Tramways Company (Spanish: ''Compañía de Tranvías Anglo Argentina''), known simply as ''La Anglo'' in Argentina, was a large transportation company which operated the majority of the trams in the Buenos Aires network, wh ...

, which was one of the largest tram operators in the world at the time. From 1955 on, the current family shareholders started to invest.

Yves Boël Yves Boël (12 September 1927, Brussels – 19 June 2012) was a Belgian businessman.

is appointed Director in 1956. In 1964, the Boël family took control together with

Société Générale de Belgique The ' ( nl, Generale Maatschappij van België; literally "General Company of Belgium") was a large Belgian bank and later holdings company which existed between 1822 and 2003. The ''Société générale'' was originally founded as an invest ...

Governance, management and shareholder structure

Governance and Management

* Chairman of the board:

David Verey Sir David John Verey CBE (born 1950) is an English banker and philanthropist. Early life Verey was born on 8 December 1950. He went to school at Eton College and later received a Master of Arts degree in English from Trinity College, Cambridge. ...

since 2014 (took over from

Richard Goblet d'Alviella Count Richard Goblet d'Alviella (born 6 July 1948) is a Belgian businessman, who studied economics at the Université libre de Bruxelles, (Brussels), and obtained an MBA at the Harvard Business School. He is a son of Jean Goblet d'Alviella and ...

) *Management: Harold Boël, chief executive officer, Xavier Coirbay, Wauthier De Bassompierre, Francois Gillet. Former Managers : Jean-Luc Reginster, former general counsel, former secretary; Marc Speeckaert, former managing director; Marc Van Cauwenberghe, former deputy managing director.

Shareholder structure

The majority of the shares are held by the Boël family. The remaining shares are listed on

Euronext Euronext N.V. (short for European New Exchange Technology) is a pan-European bourse that offers various trading and post-trade services. Traded assets include regulated equities, exchange-traded funds (ETF), warrants and certificates, bonds, ...

Brussels and Sofina is part of the

Bel 20 The BEL 20 is the benchmark stock market index of Euronext Brussels. It tracks the performance of 20 most capitalized and liquid stocks traded in Belgium. In general, the index consists of a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 20 companies traded ...

index.

Notable investments

Typeform (service) Typeform is a Spanish online software as a service (SaaS) company that specializes in online form building and online surveys. Its main software creates dynamic forms based on user needs. Typeform's software has been used by Apple Inc., Airbnb, ...

Bira 91 Bira 91 is an Indian craft beer brand manufactured by B9 Beverages Pvt. Ltd., launched in 2015. The company's first brewery unit was located in Flanders region of Belgium where a craft distillery was used to contract manufacture the beer with in ...

* Byju's *

Cambridge Associates Cambridge Associates is a privately held investment firm based in the United States. It provides investment portfolio management and advisory services to institutional investors, including foundations and endowments, pensions, private clients, an ...

Cognita Cognita is a global private schools group which owns and operates schools throughout the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Vietnam, Brazil, India and Chile. Between them, Cognita schools deliver eight different ...

Colruyt Colruyt Group is a Belgian family-owned retail corporation that is managing the Colruyt supermarkets and other subsidiaries such as OKay, Bio-Planet, DATS 24, DreamLand, DreamBaby, and more. Founded in 1928 by Franz Colruyt, the group today ...

Myntra Myntra is a major Indian fashion e-commerce company headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. The company was founded in 2007-2008 to sell personalized gift items. In May 2014, Myntra.com was acquired by Flipkart. In May 2022, Myntra laun ...

Danone Danone S.A. () is a French multinational corporation, multinational food-products corporation based in Paris. It was founded in Barcelona, Spain. It is listed on Euronext Paris where it is a component of the CAC 40 stock market index. Some of t ...

Richemont Compagnie Financière Richemont S.A., commonly known as Richemont, is a Switzerland-based luxury goods holding company founded in 1988 by South African businessman Johann Rupert. Through its various subsidiaries, Richemont produces and sells j ...

SES S.A. SES S.A. is a Luxembourgish-French satellite telecommunications network provider supplying video and data connectivity worldwide to broadcasters, content and internet service providers, mobile and fixed network operators, governments and insti ...

* Suez S.A. *

Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm. The firm is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, and specializes in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. , Sequoia's total a ...

Eurazeo Eurazeo is a French investment company formed by the merger of Azeo and Eurafrance in April 2001. The company is headquartered in Paris. Eurazeo is a leading global investment group, with a diversified portfolio of €25.6 billion in assets und ...

Pine Labs Pine Labs is an Indian company that provides financing and last-mile retail transaction technology. It was founded in 1998. It is one of the unicorn companies, with a valuation of over US$5 billion. It provides a merchant platform and makes s ...

Flipkart Flipkart Private Limited is an Indian e-commerce company, headquartered in Bengaluru, and incorporated in Singapore as a private limited company. The company initially focused on online book sales before expanding into other product categories ...

(made an exit in 2018)

References

External links

Sofina website

Sofina news
* For the history and historical archives of the company, se
Association pour la Valorisation des Archives d'Entreprises
* Financial services companies of Belgium Companies based in Brussels Companies listed on Euronext Brussels {{finance-company-stub