Route du Rhum – Destination Guadeloupe Fives in the running!
Sponsorship grounded in the company’s values
Since 1978, the Route du Rhum has brought monohulls, multihulls, light racing craft and the largest racers together on a single starting line, to take on the same course. For the first time, Fives is sponsoring two skippers competing in this legendary transatlantic race: Lorient’s Bertrand Delesne and Normandy’s Louis Duc. They will set sail from St Malo to Pointe-à-Pitre on November 4.
Discussions between employees and skippers before the departure
Employees of Fives Syleps, which is based in Lorient, will have the opportunity to enjoy a talk with the skippers before, during and after the race. On October 11 and 13, before the two racers headed for St Malo, Fives Syleps employees had the chance to meet them and hear about their personal dedication to the race and boundless commitment to this extreme event. A tour of their boats gave the employees a glimpse into their world: the pace of life at sea and the thrills and risks they face.
“There are important similarities between these skippers’ agendas and our own here at company”, explains Xavier Duquesne, Chairman of the Executive Board of Fives Syleps. “Bertrand and Louis are running an “enterprise” with a strategic vision. They constantly have to innovate while assessing risk. They undertake construction projects with all the constraints that we also face. And they must be totally committed to their race. That’s why we thought that it would be great to experience this adventure from start to finish with the whole Fives Syleps staff.”
Solidarity and complementarity
Fives Syleps has been supporting these extreme adventurers for close to fifteen years. In 2005, the company, then known as Sydel-Sedep, supported Louis Duc in his very first transatlantic race, the Mini Transat. Bertrand Delesne’s first encounter with the Lorient-based management team is more recent, but they also hit it off immediately.
A long-term sponsorship
The company’s sponsorship of the two skippers is based on two values, independence and mutual support. While Bertrand Delesne and Louis Duc are competitors during the race, they stand together on land and at sea: at the least sign of trouble, solidarity overtakes the drive to compete. That teamwork echoes the cooperation between the teams at Fives Syleps and the other subsidiaries and corporate offices of the Fives group, which Syleps joined in 2017.
Fives Syleps employees in the running!
A both real and virtual follow-up of the race
After the race starts on November 4, the Fives Syleps teams will continue to experience the Route du Rhum thanks to:
- a map showing both skippers’ positions available to all employees,
- the opportunity to exchange phone calls and emails with the sailors,
- an online competition, the “Virtual Regatta” - the winner of which will enjoy a half-day regatta with the skippers after the race.
The experience should be intense on both land and sea!
Fives Syleps: 5 years of constant growth
Fives Syleps, founded in Lorient in 1975, is the French leader in logistics and order preparation for the agri-food industry. It is also a major player on the European intralogistics market. The company owes its success to its historic excellence in IT and its ability to innovate.
It has seen non-stop growth since 2013 and has developed a strong growth outlook since its acquisition by the Fives group in July 2017. In 2017, it generated sales of over €40 million.
Activity Design and execution of digital, automated and robotized intralogistics platforms for the agri-food industry, distribution platforms, and the manufacturing sector. Development of the export courier market.
Headcount 245 employees (25 based in Bordeaux) and 55 engineers hired in 3 years (25 of them in 2018). Hiring levels in 2019 should be even higher.