Sodexho Receives Top Five Ranking Among Global Outsourcing Service Providers

GAITHERSBURG, Md., April 27, 2007- The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP), an industry trade group has ranked 1 Sodexho (NYSE:SDX) number four overall among the world's leading global outsourcing service providers and number one in its industry category, “Facility Services.”

Companies were ranked based on 18 criteria including revenue growth, number of employees, workforce skills and training, technical and business certifications, the track record of the management team and the quality of customer services.

The “Global Outsourcing 100,” as determined by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP), appears as a special advertising feature in European editions of the May 7 issue of Fortune magazine.

Sodexho, Inc. (www.sodexhoUSA.com) is the leading provider of integrated food and facilities management services in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, with $6.7 billion (USD) in annual revenue and 125,000 employees. Sodexho serves more than 10 million customers daily in corporations, health care, long term care and retirement centers, schools, college campuses, government and remote sites. Sodexho, Inc., headquartered in Gaithersburg, Md., is a subsidiary of Sodexho Alliance (NYSE:SDX, www.sodexho.com). Sodexho, Inc. funds the Sodexho Foundation (www.helpstophunger.org), an independent charitable organization that, since its founding in 1999, has made more than $7.2 million in grants to fight hunger in America.

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The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) is pleased to announce the following companies have been selected as 2007's best outsourcing service providers - The Global Outsourcing 100.

Relative rankings, selection process details, and company profiles appeared in a special advertising feature, produced by IAOP, in the April 30th FORTUNE 500 issue of FORTUNE® magazine. Click here to download the feature.

Companies were judges on four critical characteristics: size and growth; customer references; organizational competencies; and management capabilities.     

THE 2007 GLOBAL OUTSOURCING 100:

HONORABLE MENTION- The following companies were judged as 'Rising Stars” and received  an honorable mention: Apollo Health Street, Ci&T Software, Frontline Outsourcing, Hundsun, Itransition, Mera Networks, OB10, SlashSupport, Tech Team Akela, Vsource Asia

EVALUATION TEAM- The 2007 evaluation team is led by Certified Outsourcing Professional (COP) Jagdish Dalal, a world-renowned outsourcing expert who has worked as a senior executive in customer, provider, and advisor companies for almost three decades.  (Jag's work as the outsourcing customer for Xerox's $3.2B outsourcing contract with EDS was turned into a Harvard Business School case study and is used in many teaching curricula.) The panel includes:

. Chris Campbell, Principal, Booz Allen Hamilton
. Dr. Tina Dacin, Queen's School of Business E. Marie Shantz Professor of Strategy & Organizational Behavior
. Vera Marques, CIO, BASF
. Mukesh Mehta, VP, Wachovia
. Clifford D. Moore III, Chairman & Co-Founder, COPC Inc.
. Jean-Francois Poisson, COP, GM, Contract Management, Bell Canada
. Lisa Ross, CEO and Founder of FAO Research, Inc.