About

Bastien Soret has been leading the legal departments of international companies for over 16 years. Taking the reins at Elis, a leader in the rental of textiles and hygiene equipment, in 2007, Soret created four new departments in France covering the securities, business, real estate and public law. In 2014 he also added a business law department in Brazil to cover increasing activity in the country. Soret, gifted in legal logic, has a robust wealth of experience with over 50 merger and acquisition transactions under his belt since 2007. The transactions were facilitated by his cross-border team of over 20 employees in France and four in Brazil. The strategic direction of Elis has taken a legal-inclusive shift adapting to internal legal procedures innovatively crafted by Soret. Although he has had a number of career highlights, two achievements stand out as particularly noticeable: his commendable handling of the listing of Elis on the Paris Stock Exchange in 2015 with a capital increase of €850m, and the 2013 acquisition of a Brazilian company with a turnover of €90m. Just over the last year Soret has effectively carried out merger and acquisition transactions leading to the acquisition of 10 new operations across Europe, Brazil and Chile; the Chilean operation itself consisted of eight laundries and 1,000 employees. After the research phrase was completed, Soret moved to SOCOTEC as group general counsel.