The name “Bois Sauvage” comes from the place where the company’s registered office was established in Brussels. The place referred to as “Bois Sauvage”, a deformation of the Dutch patronymic “Wilde Wouter”, was located a long time ago between the Cathedral of Saints Michel and Gudule and the first enclosing wall of the City of Brussels.

Only a few sections of wall of this 13th-century enclosure still remain, including the Bois Sauvage arcades, which have been renovated by the company under the advice of the Royal Commission for Monuments and Sites.

The rehabilitation of the Bois Sauvage site earned the company the Quartier des Arts Award in 1992. Ten years later, in 2002, the company again received this prestigious award for the renovation of the Treurenberg site.

Compagnie du Bois Sauvage is the result of the merging of nineteen companies with very diverse origins and activities, such as Fours Lecocq, the Nagelmackers Financial Company, the Hensies-Pommeroeul Collieries, Entrema or Somikin (a mining company from Kindu), some of whose origins go back more than a hundred years. Some were too small to play a decisive economic role, others were concerned with what had become irrevocably dated activities, whilst others were in liquidation and destined to disappear.

Their joining together, which simply confirmed a de facto situation, was in perfect accord with the Company’s strategy of stability and its mission to act as an economic and financial driving force.