SEGRO strengthens its teams in France by appointing Laurence Giard as Managing Director France
SEGRO France has announced the appointment of Laurence Giard as Managing Director of SEGRO France.
SEGRO France manages a portfolio of assets of more than 1.2 million m², made up of platforms dedicated to urban distribution, business parks as well as sets dedicated to large logistics mainly located on the backbone Lille-Paris-Lyon-Marseilles. This appointment is in addition to his current role as Director of Mergers & Acquisitions for the SEGRO group.
Laurence Giard joined SEGRO in 2008 as Chief Financial Officer for Europe, then took over as head of the Group's Operational Finance Department, and more recently that of the Group's Mergers & Acquisitions Department. In particular, she led the creation of the pan-European logistics fund SEGRO European Logistics Partnership (SELP), is behind the acquisition by SEGRO of two major logistics developers: Vailog in Italy and Roxhill in the United Kingdom and a acquisition of a stake in SOFIBUS Patrimoine, listed on Euronext Paris, of which she is currently a director.
After training at ESSEC, Laurence began her career as an auditor with EY (formerly Ernst & Young). After a few years, she continued her career in New York at Havas Media then at JC Decaux, one of the world leaders in urban advertising, as Chief Financial Officer for North America.
Marco Simonetti, Managing Director of the Southern Europe division, talks about the reasons for this strategic choice: “Laurence's appointment as Managing Director France will allow us to accelerate our development in France. In recent years, we have experienced very strong growth, and we therefore wish to consolidate our leadership position and continue our development in urban logistics, business parks and large logistics”.
“France is an anchor country for the SEGRO group in Continental Europe. We are historically present there in all logistics and industrial asset classes with significant growth ambitions in each of them. It is therefore for me a great pride to join the team to continue the efforts already undertaken for a few years” confides Laurence Giard, Managing Director SEGRO France.