Always dare, compose sometimes, never give up. At the head of Catering International Services (CIS), the company he founded in 1992, Régis Arnoux has always endorsed this motto. Not hesitating to leave the southern districts of Marseille, where CIS’s head office is located, for a distant construction site or a distant construction, mining or oil operation, often in inhospitable countries.
It is in these territories, far from everything, where life promises to be rough for men and machines, that CIS, very quickly nicknamed "the hotelkeeper of the extreme", forged its letters of nobility by organizing and managing life bases.
"The principle is simple: we respond to calls for tenders for contracts of an average of three years. The heart of our activity is always accommodation and catering, sometimes for thousands of people. For example, we currently have an operation in Mongolia - where we have been present for ten years – for a base for 8,000 people who will soon increase to 10,000," explains Régis Arnoux. "But more and more we are also providing related services, such as security, waste management or maintenance, and over time CIS has become a service integrator and this evolution is becoming more pronounced. We are thinking of acquiring a service company that would allow us to better organize ourselves and reduce the impact of currency depreciations ".
In the services dimension, CIS attaches even greater importance to the fact that the company continues to expand our portfolio of contracts.
The balance sheet presented to financial analysts for the first half of this year (CIS has been listed on the Paris Stock Exchange since 1998) confirms a clear commercial dynamic. Several contracts were signed for a global amount of 160 billion dollars, concretizing the approach of starting operations in new countries, such as Senegal within the framework of a mine led by the Eramet group, or Malawi.
CIS is also working in the Bahamas on the Ocean Cay dockyard on behalf of MSC. In Mauritania, the company operates on Africa's largest open-pit gold and copper mine. The group also manages the life base of the construction site of the huge Nachtigal dam in Cameroon, has recently started a new contract in Gabon with the oil company Perenco, which is involved in the reopening of old wells. Continuing in Africa with the Democratic Republic of Congo, CIS manages the life bases of two mining sites owned by Chinese operators. Without forgetting a historical presence in Algeria where CIS constantly reinforces its presence in the field.
Régis Arnoux is also proud of positions acquired in the Brazilian offshore, the fruit of fifteen years of work with Petrobras. "In this country we manage 15 platforms and we have our second largest subsidiary after Algeria," said the president of CIS.
It is therefore a certainty: "The second half will be marked by significant commercial development and 2020 will be favorably impacted. We have two years in business portfolio," said Régis Arnoux.
But the founder, who has not spared his involvement in this flight, also knows that it is time to rely on a second. He chose it in Yannick Morillon- a former Campenon Bernard, then the Veolia Group, followed by becoming the president of Geocoton in 2011, to whom he gave a second life. A true international specialist, he joined CIS this past June. His goal: "To further harness CIS and develop innovation for the benefit of our customers and partners around the world".
Source : https://www.laprovence.com/article/economie/5693464/marseille-cis-au-service-des-chantiers-du-monde.html
