Belgian entrepreneur who owed his rapid rise in the world of mass distribution to his marriage in May 1942 to the daughter of Sarma’s founder, Jan-Baptist Van Gysel. Through this union, in 1950 he joined the C.A. of many companies linked to his father-in-law’s firm. In 1956, after the latter’s death, he inherited most of his mandates and was appointed managing director of several companies including Sarma and Sarma-Congo.
In 1961, he participated in the creation of S.A. Supermarkets Sarma-Nopri, absorbed two years later by Sarma. In addition to these two companies, in 1966 the Sarmac group included Les Grands Magasins de la Bourse, SA Tops (specializing in the installation and operation of restaurants), several real estate, mortgage and hotel companies.
He managed the second Belgian beer producer (the Haecht Brewery), had interests in the company Unibra (food sector) and controlled several companies located in the former Belgian colony and Sarma-Iberica, created in Spain in 1965. In 1968, JC Penney Company Inc., which owned one of the major department store chains in the United States, took a stake in Sarma and quickly took control of the group after a takeover bid. The following year, the new investor restructured the group, which abandoned its interests in Zaire and Spain.
SA Sarmac continued with its part in real estate activities and the wholesale trade (supplying the chain of affiliates Nopri) under the direction of Jacques Dansette, appointed baron on 16 June 1970 and who resigned from all his positions in 1978.
In addition to his important career as a manager of companies, he was notably president of the Professional Union of Multiple Department Stores, then of the Association of Large Distribution Companies. He died on 23 June 1988 in Monte Carlo, Monaco at age 71.