Danone
 |
|
| Société anonyme | |
| Traded as |
Euronext: BN OTCQX: |
| Industry | Food processing |
| Founded |
Barcelona, Spain (1919) |
| Founder | Isaac Carasso |
| Headquarters |
Boulevard Haussmann 9th arrondissement, Paris, France |
|
Key people
|
Franck Riboud (Chairman of the Board), Emmanuel Faber (Vice-Chairman and CEO) |
| Products | Dairy products, Bottled water, Early life nutrition, Medical nutrition |
| Revenue | €22.412 billion (2015) |
| €2.892 billion (2015) | |
| Profit | €1.398 billion (2015) |
| Total assets | €32.712 billion (end 2015) |
| Total equity | €12.669 billion (end 2015) |
|
Number of employees
|
99781 (end 2015) |
| Website | www.danone.com |
Danone is a French multinational food-products corporation based in Paris. It has four business lines: Fresh Dairy products, Waters, Early Life Nutrition and Medical Nutrition.
The company is listed on Euronext Paris and on the OTCQX market via an ADR (American Depository Receipt) program.
Danone is present in over 130 markets and generated sales of €22.4 billion in 2015, with more than half in emerging countries. In 2015, Fresh dairy products represent 50% of the group's total sales, Early Life Nutrition 22%, Waters 21% and Medical Nutrition 7%.
There have been reports and allegations in 2013 that Danone engaged in unethical marketing of infant formula in China, Indonesia, and Turkey.
The original company bearing the corporate name was founded in 1919 by Isaac Carasso, a migrant from Salonica of the Ottoman Empire, in Barcelona, Spain as a small factory producing yoghurt. The brand was named Danone after Danon, the nickname of his son Daniel Carasso.
Ten years later, the company moved from Spain to France, and its first French factory was built. During the German occupation, Daniel Carasso moved the company to New York to avoid persecution as a result of his Jewish faith. In the United States, Daniel Carasso partnered with the Swiss-born Spaniard Juan Metzger and changed the brand name to Dannon to sound more American.
In 1951, Daniel Carasso returned to Paris to manage the family's businesses in France and Spain, and the American business was sold to Beatrice Foods in 1959; it was repurchased by Danone in 1981. In Europe in 1967, Danone merged with Gervais, the leading fresh cheese producer in France, and became Gervais Danone.
Another branch of Danone descended from industrial glassmaker Boussois-Souchon-Neuvesel (BSN), which was founded by the family of Antoine Riboud. After a failed attempted takeover battle for its larger rival Saint-Gobain, Riboud transformed it into one of Europe's leading food groups in the 1970s through a series of acquisitions and mergers, including the 1973 merger with Gervais Danone.
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Wikipedia