PARIS: State-run bookmaking firm Pari Mutuel Urbain (PMU) has
appointed its first communications director, Bruno Travade.
Travade, 45, joins the firm from the organising committee of the
football World Cup, where he was director of press and
communications.
He will report to PMU’s president, Bertrand Belinguier, and oversee a
17-strong team covering press relations, PR and advertising.
PR and advertising were previously handled separately by respective
heads Sophie LeMouel and Christian Ract, who will both report to
Travade. LeMouel said: ’Until this appointment, we were in an unusual
situation: being the seventh largest service company in France and the
first games firm in France, but without a communications directorate.
Our PR and advertising departments were not even united
geographically.’
PMU’s decision to create a communications director is part of the
company’s new business plan, put in place over the past year following
the appointment of Belinguier as president and Patrick Gatin as director
in April 1997.
Before working for the World Cup, Travade spent 15 years at car group
Volkswagen-Audi France, where he was most recently marketing and
communications director.
PMU has a monopoly of horserace betting in France. Its board members
include alternate representatives from the French ministry of finance
and the economy or from the ministry of agriculture. Also represented on
the board are horseracing companies such as France Galop and trade
associations like the national federation of horseracing companies.
Last year PMU recorded a turnover of around pounds 3.45 billion. It
counts 7,800 sales outlets across France and an additional 220 shops
with live links to race clubs or tracks.
