Sanofi Leader Relocates to New England

In a story which was first reported in the French-language daily, Le Monde, Chris Viehbacher, chief executive officer of Sanofi is relocating his home from Paris to the Boston area.  Sanofi, which has its U.S. headquarters in Bridgewater, New Jersey, will still maintain its worldwide headquarters in Paris.

It is the second largest company by market value in France, and is one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, with a global presence in more than 100 countries.

Expressing concern about his departure, Le Monde opened its article on Sanofi with the question, “Loin des yeux, loin du coeur? [Out of sight, out of mind?].”

Nonetheless, Viehbacher is not the first high-ranking corporate executive to move out of that country.  In the past, he has been plain about “his admiration for the Boston region’s cluster" of academic research labs and biotech startups.”

This became evident a few years ago, when, under his direction, Sanofi acquired the Cambridge-based biotechnology firm Genzyme, a leader in life sciences for $20.1 billion, and shuttered its research facilities in Bridgewater, resulting in job losses in that community.

 

Mr. Viehbacher has dual citizenship in Germany and Canada, is multilingual, and has a son studying at Boston’s Northeastern University.

France’s tax structure also seems to be one of the reasons why not merely a few highly paid individuals have left France to avoid its taxation system:  In 2013, French actor Gérard Depardieu assumed Russian citizenship in order to avoid a newly instituted French tax law that imposes a 75 per cent levy on the income of wealthy individuals.

In its French-language edition of last Tuesday, Le Monde quoted a headhunter that “tax policy is not the sole reason [for this exodus of talent], but that [such] decisions by the French government have accelerated the decentralization [of French companies], thereby encouraging the expatriation of their highly paid executives.

Stéphane Sabatier, a lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisitions, said that “France has not established a sufficiently enticing framework for attracting and retaining the high-level executives that it needs.”

Note:  French translations from Le Monde are my own.