CEBEO, a world leader in the distribution of electrical equipment, has just announced the establishment of its new distribution centre in Tournai, on a 12-hectare site. The staff currently employed in Mouscron will move to the Tournai industrial estate in 2023.

Sonepar, an independent family-owned group based in northern France, is a world leader in the distribution of electrical equipment for professionals.   The company has branches in five continents and 48 countries, a turnover of 24.03 billion euros, and employs 46,000 people, including at the company CEBEO, which will soon be investing in Tournai. 

CEBEO was founded in 1922 in Courtrai, and is specialised in the distribution of electronic equipment, technical services and solutions for the residential, tertiary and industrial sectors.  The company, which has been managed by CEO Alexander Dewulf since 2008, has a turnover of 600 million euros in Belgium and employs 1,000 people.

Alexander Dewulf, CEBEO's CEO : "The location is ideal, at the junction of the E403 (Bruges-Tournai) and E42 (Mons-Tournai) motorways. It will be a semi-automatic centre, which guarantees employment. The 200 employees who are currently working in Mouscron will be relocated to the Tournai site. Depending on the evolution of the turnover, new jobs may also be created".

CEBEO’s distribution centre in Mouscron, which has 33,000 m² of internal storage space and an external area of 6,000 m², and has employed 200 people since 2003, no longer meets the company’s needs. The future distribution centre in Tournai will offer a storage area of 40,000 m² and an outdoor site of 8,000 m² with an option to extend it by an additional 15,000 m².

The new building will be BREAAM-certified, an international system for assessing sustainability based on energy and water consumption, generated waste, land use, biodiversity, innovation and the materials used.