CFAO

CFAO SA

Type	Société anonyme
Traded as	Euronext: CFAO
Industry	Industrial products distribution
Founded	1887 (1887)
Founder	Frédéric Bohn
Headquarters	Sèvres, France
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Alain Viry (Chairman and CEO)
Revenue	€3.58 billion (2012)
Operating income	€280.8 million (2012)
Profit	€171.2 million (2012)
Total assets	€1.19 billion (2012)
Total equity	€818.9 million (2012)
Number of employees	10100
Parent	Toyota Tsusho Corporation
Website	CFAOGroup.com

CFAO is a multinational company engaged in the sale of manufactured goods, especially automobiles and pharmaceutical products. It has operations in Africa and France's former colonies and overseas territories.

The Compagnie Française de l'Afrique Occidentale (CFAO) was founded in 1887 by Frédéric Bohn. It was created from the shipping company owned by his father in law, Charles-Auguste Verminck, the Établissements Verminck, centred on Marseille. Initially continued business operations that were being carried on, trading with groundnut, leather, soap, rubber and other products, but soon adopted the pattern of rivals French colonial trading houses, with a management structure composed of non-African employees (mostly French) and a retail location network (in the major transatlantic ports) with exchange sites (called factoreries) located on rivers-banks and the hinterland. CFAO expanded into Senegal, then into Sierra Leone to exploit its rich production of palm kernels and obtain oil. Its main rival at the time was another French company, the Société Commerciale de l'Ouest Africain (SCOA), founded in 1905 by dissident managers of CFAO.

However, the main goal soon became to compete for the market share of the powerful British colonial companies, taking advantage of the 1898 free trade agreement, which included the Niger River and its basin. CFAO entered slowly in the Gulf of Guinea, gaining ground in Nigeria and Ghana and clashing with the English and Dutch operations. In 1909, the company settled a branch in the Gold Coast (Ghana), where an important cocoa production was developing. The company followed an open strategy, receiving supplies from companies of different countries and establishing purchase locations for products to sell in Africa throughout Europe, for example in England, where it focused its operations in Manchester. In 1911, CFAO sealed an agreement with the Ford Motor Company’s French subsidiary and began selling Ford automobiles in sub-Saharan Africa, although car sales was not one of its core activities until mid-century. At the same time, it also signed an agreement (1911) with the American firm Texaco for petroleum products. During the 20s and 30s, the company opened subsidiaries in Cameroon, Gabon, Togo and the present-day Democratic Republic of Congo. In the 50s, it won the exclusive distribution of several American manufactured goods, such as International Harvester's agricultural machinery, Remington's office equipment and Otis' elevators.