“The acquisition of the Village Hôtels network is the first major acquisitions Hôtels B&B ever performed. It was a move of very high strategic significance on many counts :
• This acquisition would permit us to gain a critical mass in France, which we did not have before
• As a result, we would achieve overnight a geographical coverage which would take us three years to complete otherwise
• We were also keen to prove our shareholders that the management team was able to successfully perform operations of that order of magnitude. Successfully integrating a company representing half our size would prove the point perfectly.
• As a consequence, every aspect of the merger had to be carefully crafted in details: HR, marketing, customer relation, communication…

No mistake was therefore acceptable.

We picked Eric Fanton to help us integrate Village Hotels, on the following basis:
• We worked with him before, and he knows Hotels B&B
• His past experience in similar works and situations was convincing
• He has an in-depth understanding of Management Information Systems, extending to managerial accounting
• The work methodology he proposed brought a decisive clarification. It pointed to the direction the management team would follow, and to the tasks it would have to complete. The path to success became visible to anyone involved.
• Eric has a direct interpersonal style well suited tour corporate culture. He is keen to coach and transmit knowledge in a very open-minded manner.

We are entirely satisfied with the work done. The merger has been a complete success and our shareholders qualified it as a “textbook example”.”