Sodexo's employee experience brand Pluxee and private bank Santander Brazil have entered into a strategic partnership to deliver meal and food benefits via 750,000 merchants.
The collaboration will deliver benefits services offered by the Pluxee brand exclusively through the Santander network, integrating with the bank's own staff benefits programme, 'Ben', which boasts a network of 3,000 clients, 600,000 consumers and over 400,000 merchants.
Pluxee becomes the sole provider of food-related employee benefits within Santander's wide national network of agencies and bankers for the next 25 years.
Aurélien Sonet, CEO of Pluxee, expresses excitement about the partnership.
I look forward to its success for both Pluxee and Santander."
The expansion of the distribution network in the country will accelerate the penetration of the SME businesses and contribute to Pluxee’s market share growth in Brazil, one of the largest Employee Benefit markets in the world.
Gustavo Alejo, CFO of Santander in Brazil, echoes the sentiment, adding, "We have a strong cultural fit, with a focus on fostering sustainability and building meaningful relationships with clients, consumers, merchants, and communities."
Thierry Guihard, CEO of Pluxee in Brazil, believes the collaboration offers huge potential, adding: "We look forward to working with the Ben and Santander teams to accelerate our strategy to meet the growing demand for Employee Benefit solutions.
We are therefore convinced that the combination of Pluxee products, together with Santander’s network distribution capacity, will bring immediate results."
Under the proposal, Santander will also acquire a 20 per cent stake in Pluxee Brazil, pending approval from the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) and the Central Bank of Brazil.
The transaction is expected to be accretive for Pluxee in terms of organic growth and EBITDA margin from year one.
