Interview

Bertrand Vignes is currently the CEO of SIFCA, though he comes to SIFCA from Michelin. He was instrumental in setting up the Michelin-SIFCA partnership in 2002. He headed PALMCI as CEO, until becoming Deputy CEO of SIFCA in 2009, and then CEO of SIFCA in March 2011.

Vignes is CEO of Société Internationale de Plantations d’Hévéas (SIPH) as of August 31, 2009, and served as a member of the board of directors of SIPH, representing Michelin Finance until January 1, 2009.

Born in December 30, 1955, Vignes received his education at the National College of Agronomy in Rennes, France, graduating in 1978. Between 1981 and 2008, he occupied a variety of posts in Africa, Brazil and France for Michelin. In an interview in September 2011, Vignes described the activities of the SIFCA Group:

“Our main activities are rubber and palm oil. We are also involved in sugar but that is only about 10% of our turnover and is just in Cote d’Ivoire, for the local market. Rubber is for export, specifically to European industries and we have a strategic partner in Michelin tires.

We want to develop rubber in Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Ghana and Liberia. The problem with natural rubber is that it takes very long to generate a return on investment, so it means that we have to take advantage of the good current circumstances to invest. Today the price is high so it means we have a strong cash flow to invest and expand.

Our other main activity is palm oil. Currently we only produce palm oil in Cote d’Ivoire through our subsidiaries Palmci and Sania. We work with market leader Wilmar and also another Singaporean company Olam International. We would like to have a balance between these two crops.”