Laurent Guillot, directeur général d'Emeis, était l'invité de Laure Closier dans Good Morning Business, ce mercredi 5 novembre. Ils sont revenus sur le bilan de redressement du groupe Emeis trois ans après le texte le livre "Les Fossoyeurs" qui a fait vaciller l'entreprise, sur BFM Business.
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45 on BFM Business and on RMC Life. Our guest this morning is Laurent Guillot. Hello, you are the CEO of EMEIS, formerly ORPA. We will look together at how the group is doing three years after the book that shook the company. You recently announced at the beginning of the month the sale of your independent senior residence network for 159 million euros. That is part of the deleveraging strategy. We see that the occupancy rate is rising in your establishments today. How would you say the group is doing?
Hello. The group is doing better. The balance sheet, as you said, has been strengthened. So, there was the latest operation we announced at the beginning of the week, which is the sale of the senior residences for 160 million euros, 159 million euros. But before that, over the past two and a half years, we have done 2.1 billion euros in real estate sales and a very small amount of operational sales, which have allowed us to considerably strengthen the group's balance sheet. That's on the balance sheet side, which was important and needs to continue to be worked on. And also, we have started the operational turnaround, with, as you said, occupancy rates rising, especially in France, but across Europe as well. Prices are also rising, and therefore operating results are improving. We have committed this year to an EBITDA growth of between 15 and 18%, and we have confirmed our target for the year.
What would you say is the group's model tomorrow? Is it to no longer own the walls at all? Is it a model a bit like Accor where you have the business and the walls belong to real estate companies?
So it's not exactly that model. Today, historically, and when I took over the group in 2022, we owned 40-42% of our walls. The goal is to bring that down to around 20-25% ownership of the walls. We need to keep some of the walls as well. The interaction between operations and the quality of the property is very important. I think it's like a hotel, and so we want to keep our expertise in building facilities, but your business is not real estate. Our business is not real estate. Our business is care. Nevertheless, the efficiency of our care business also depends on the organization of work inside a building. And so having the ability to optimize the building to provide the best possible care is really important for us. Moreover, you know, we are there for people to be at home, and for them to be at home, their home must be pleasant, so we must design the best possible homes for our residents.
So, I read that the occupancy rate is rising. So that is obviously good news. What are the discussions? Do you still, three years after the book 'Les Fossoyeurs', have conversations with clients? How do they talk about this affair? Is it behind you? Do you still have to justify yourselves?
No, no, I think it's behind us now. We have done many things, both for our teams because it's important to take care of the people who take care of our patients and residents. We have considerably strengthened controls in terms of quality. We changed the company's name, so moving to EMEIS, that was also an important step for both our teams and our residents. Today, all of that is behind us.
Well, the sector is consolidating. So, the market is obviously booming with the needs of the elderly, the needs for dependency care, but we also see that there are groups in difficulty, up for sale, changing hands. You, what is your vision for 5 years? Will you continue to sell off walls, but will you buy back other players? How do you see your positioning?
7 more exchanges in this transcript
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Guillot, L. (2025, November 4). Orpea : "Tout ça c'est derrière nous" (Laurent Guillot directeur général d'Emeis ex Orpea) [Interview transcript]. BFM Business. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1108976/
MLA
Laurent Guillot. "Orpea : "Tout ça c'est derrière nous" (Laurent Guillot directeur général d'Emeis ex Orpea)." BFM Business, 4 Nov. 2025. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1108976/.
BibTeX
@misc{guillot2025_1108976,
author = {Laurent Guillot},
title = {Orpea : "Tout ça c'est derrière nous" (Laurent Guillot directeur général d'Emeis ex Orpea)},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, BFM Business. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2025},
month = {nov},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1108976/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
