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Published on 29.05.2026 
Altimance is part of the British Rigby Group, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2025.
Led by its founder and his two sons, Rigby Group operates across a wide range of sectors including hospitality, real estate, finance and airport services, with a total workforce of more than 7,000 employees.
A market leader in IT in the United Kingdom, the Group has expanded throughout Europe in this sector through its subsidiary SCC.
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This business sector alone accounts for more than 3,000 employees in France, not counting its operations in the United Kingdom, Spain, and Romania.
Its growth has been driven by numerous acquisitions, enabling it to become one of Europe’s leading privately owned B2B IT groups.
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Committed to offering its clients access to the entire information technology value chain, Rigby Group does not hesitate to create new firms when needed.
This is exactly what it did in 2017 with Altimance, a company tasked with reinventing the legacy model of its user support operations – commonly known as the “helpdesk”.
The Group selected France, and the Hauts-de-France Region specifically, as the location for this brand-new company.
We interviewed Antony Logez (Service Center Director) and Véronique Chabanon-Butkiewicz (Human Resources Manager) at Altimance.
“Valenciennes and the Hauts-de-France Region met all our selection criteria.”
Rigby Group’s presence in France is based on the principle of proximity to companies in the country, both to meet the requirements of public procurement contracts and to align with the CSR commitments of private-sector companies, which are increasingly attentive to the location of their service providers.
As such, the choice of country was never in doubt.
However, we did evaluate several locations in France, including Auvergne and Montpellier.
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The decision in favor of Valenciennes came down to:
In 2017, the Valenciennes metropolitan area was also redeveloping the former Vallourec industrial brownfield site as part of its transition toward the digital economy.
It was therefore seeking investors in the IT sector and offered us high-quality support in both logistics and finance.
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The total investment committed by Rigby Group to the creation and development of Altimance amounted to approximately €15 million, of which €1.5 million was contributed in equal parts by the Hauts-de-France Region (via European funds) and Valenciennes Métropole.
Finally, Sir Peter Rigby, who visited all the candidate sites in person, had to give his approval.
The proximity to England and certain similarities with the United Kingdom – in terms of architecture, landscape, and labor market dynamics – convinced him that Valenciennes was the right choice.
Knowing that he would be participating with Altimance in the revitalization of an area and its transformation into a digital excellence hub was also a significant factor.
This was a forward-looking vision, because at the outset, there was nothing at all on this brownfield site.
We watched our building literally rise up from the ground.
We are proud to be contributing to the transformation of a predominantly industrial region into a digital economy hub and to the development of skills there that were previously lacking.
“From the outset, we believed in Valenciennes Métropole’s project to transform an industrial wasteland into the Rives Créatives de l’Escaut innovation park, dedicated to the digital sector. That challenge has now been met, and we are proud to have played a part in it.”
During the due diligence phase, we met with elected officials, heads of training centers, university representatives, and France Travail (the national employment agency).
Although the pool of candidates was substantial, we knew that no one in the area had been specifically trained for IT support and helpdesk roles.
We therefore worked with France Travail to design training programs to prepare two types of candidates for these positions:
on one hand, recent graduates with a digital-technology-focused baccalauréat (high-school diploma) or a BTS SIO (IT Systems and Networks technician diploma) who had limited career opportunities in the region;
on the other hand, career changers, particularly from manufacturing and logistics backgrounds.
As a result, within three years we went from zero to nearly 250 employees, with an average age of 30 today.
A strong commitment to human relations is a hallmark of both our Group and our company – exemplified by the subsidiary E-Altimance, which we established in 2022 as a sheltered employment enterprise (entreprise adaptée) and which employs around forty people, the majority of whom have disabilities.
It is worth highlighting the mobilization and concerted efforts of all institutional, nonprofit, and private-sector employment stakeholders in the Valenciennes region in delivering these results, given that we provide systematic in-house training for all new hires.
“Altimance has built its project around an ambitious and innovative HR policy: on one side, hiring and training hundreds of employees; on the other, creating a subsidiary in the form of a sheltered employment enterprise that employs dozens of people with disabilities.”
All of Rigby Group’s satellite activities are relevant to its IT activities.
The financial services division, for example, enables us to offer clients financing solutions for the deployment of an end-to-end architecture – from design through to installation and operation.
By converting CAPEX (capital expenditure) into OPEX (operating expenditure), we provide them with greater flexibility and freedom in terms of cash flow management.
Conversely, Altimance and its subsidiary E-Altimance provide support services to all IT clients of the Group’s subsidiary SCC.
Altimance is part of the Rigby Group, a family-owned company named after its founder, Sir Peter Rigby, who established it in 1975.
Sir Peter was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2002 in recognition of his services to technological development and business in the West Midlands.
He is also the first British entrepreneur to receive the French Légion d’Honneur, in recognition of his services to the French economy and his role in strengthening Franco-British trade relations.
Altimance started operating in September 2017 at the Rives Créatives de l’Escaut Innovation Park in Anzin (Nord department), on the former Vallourec industrial brownfield site.
Some could have considered this a bold venture, as not a single building had yet been constructed.
The IT company was initially housed in the co-working space at La Nouvelle Forge before moving into its own 2,500 m² premises.
This project revolved around two main objectives:
Altimance played a key pioneering role in the development of the Rives Créatives de l’Escaut, which spans 26 hectares and hosts a comprehensive digital ecosystem (companies, service providers, incubators, schools, etc.).
Altimance has also given over 450 people opportunities to build careers in IT.
Finally, it has broken new ground by creating a sheltered employment subsidiary (E-Altimance), one of the first of its kind in the digital sector in the region.
All these initiatives give its economic role a deeper social purpose, in keeping with a commitment to corporate territorial social responsibility.
This interview is based on our discussions with Antony Logez (Service Center Director) and Véronique Chabanon-Butkiewicz (Human Resources Manager) at Altimance as part of the KPMG – NFI 2025 Impact Study.
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