About Us

The Compagnie Fruitière’s Endowment Fund is intended to bring financial contribution to support humanitarian and social projects and choosing to foster projects that are part of a comprehensive and sustainable framework. It wants to give meaning to the actions that are undertaken by becoming a true partner of the organization that is supported. Empathy and altruism are the underlying values that drive the organization. Its resources are provided through funds given by subsidiaries of the Compagnie Fruitière and by private third party donators.

The Compagnie Fruitière is a family company, based in Marseilles, which activities include banana and pineapple produce in Africa. The company has always been concerned with its duties and obligations and has always integrated and observed its values and ideals by following through on major general welfare issues including issues related to the impact on its environment.

In this regard, and on the initiative of Robert Fabre, President of the Compagnie Fruitière, the Compagnie Fruitière Endowment Fund, was created on the 21st of June 2012, registered and published in the Official Journal on the 21st of July 2012.

It is admitted that the organization started its activities when the Endowment Fund started committing to its role as a grower in Africa in the nineties in Cameroon and the Ivory Coast. In both these countries, the Compagnie Fruitière cultivates 10 000 hectares and employs around 13 000 staff members, thus becoming a significant economic player in Africa, undertaking and following from the beginning of it’s activities a committed and comprehensive approach. It places its pursuits and development in long term environmental and social policies that span far beyond its legal requirements.

In 1994, pursuing its commitment and actions and with a concern to sustain them, Mister Robert Fabre initiated the construction of the Saint John of Malta Hospital in Cameroon. The hospital is open to the entire local population including staff members and their families, but also to the entire local population.

In April 2015, in the light of this experience, a second hospital, the Saint John the Baptiste Hospital was underway in the Ivory Coast, also accessible to the entire population. With the Compagnie Fruitière, the Compagnie Fruitière Endowment Fund strongly supported the launching of this hospital’s activities.

These two organizations are managed by the Order of Malta.

The Compagnie Fruitière created the Compagnie Fruitière Endowment Fund, to support projects pertaining to general interest issues in France and in Africa. It enables the institutionalization of ongoing philanthropic actions, championed by the company’s leaders. It is a symbol of the passing the group’s values. But above all it has the capacity to expand, independently the scope of its activities, beyond the limits of the company.

A council consisting of three members administers the Compagnie Fruitière Endowment Fund:

The President is in charge of carrying out the council decisions and ensures the correct functioning of the Endowment Fund. She orders expenditure. Within this capacity, she choses and follows the project through, she ensures the proper monitoring of the missions. Ms, Christelle Lasme, acting in the capacity of project manager, supports her. The financial resources of the Endowment Fund come from the group’s subsidiaries and third parties. Nevertheless, the Endowment Fund is authorized and entitled to receive external donations or even notarial donations and legacies.

Endowment Funds are subject to the provisions related to the articles 140 and 141 of the law n° 2008-77 of the 4th of August 2008 and to the provisions of the decree n°2009-158 of the 11th of February 2009. It is therefor defined as a non for profit legal private entity which receives and manages, through capitalization, rights and assets of any kind, entrusted to it free of charge and irrevocably, and utilizes the revenues of these capitalizations with the purpose of carrying out works or missions of general purpose, or reallocates the capitalizations to assist a non for profit legal entity in carrying out its works and its mission committed to general purposes.