CFAO

CFAO is a multinational company engaged in the sale of manufactured goods, especially automobiles and pharmaceutical products. It has operations in Africa and France's former colonies and overseas territories.

History

The Compagnie Française de l'Afrique Occidentale (CFAO) was founded in 1887 by Frédéric Bohn. It was created from the shipping company owned by his father in law, Charles-Auguste Verminck, the Établissements Verminck, centred on Marseille. Initially continued business operations that were being carried on, trading with groundnut, leather, soap, rubber and other products, but soon adopted the pattern of rivals French colonial trading houses, with a management structure composed of non-African employees (mostly French) and a retail location network (in the major transatlantic ports) with exchange sites (called factoreries) located on rivers-banks and the hinterland. CFAO expanded into Senegal, then into Sierra Leone to exploit its rich production of palm kernels and obtain oil. Its main rival at the time was another French company, the Société Commerciale de l'Ouest Africain (SCOA), founded in 1905 by dissident managers of CFAO.