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Media, energy, transport… Vincent Bolloré, an attacker who plays physical

2021-02-06T06:13:11.995Z


Breton billionaire Vincent Bolloré has just snatched the rights to French football. Portrait of the Breton billionaire, atypical for 40 years


On a football pitch, it looked like Vincent Bolloré played him

manly but correct.

"He put the prices low to the ground, it's fair game in the situation we are in", says the representative of a football club from the North, after the French billionaire has just won the rights to French football via its Canal + channel until the end of the season.

"I would have said manly AND not correct", laughs the right arm of a big boss of the CAC 40. In business, the 17th fortune of France does not really have the reputation of playing fair.

Rather pull the jersey and tackle from behind.

His enemies today, often friends of yesterday, can attest to this.

When it comes to business, Vincent Bolloré, 69, recognizes no other links than those that unite him to his family, starting with his four children, Sébastien, Yannick, Marie and Cyrille, who is now CEO of the group.

Hence the many disappointments, bitterness or feelings of betrayal among those who have crossed his path.

Arnaud Lagardère recently learned this the hard way.

Heavily in debt, the manager of the group of the same name had called Vincent Bolloré to the rescue in the face of the assaults of the investment fund Amber Capital.

"But it was above all to bring the wolf into the sheepfold", slips a Parisian investment banker.

Since then, faced with this voracious ally, Lagardère has sought help from Bernard Arnault, the CEO of LVMH (

owner of Parisien-Today in France

).

Same painful experience for Alain Minc.

Thirty years of a friendship swept away with the back of the hand which he no longer wants to talk about.

"I have already said everything", he lets us know.

For three years, the one who had become over time his occult advisor has multiplied the acid confidences in the media.

Other former relatives spin the metaphor of the predator.

“Bolloré is a great white shark,” describes one of them.

He shows a total lack of state of mind.

"

An empire built on ... paper

His appetite led him to build a group with multiple ramifications: in energy, transport, logistics, communication, media.

An empire built… on paper.

“The family stationery was in bad shape when Vincent Bolloré took over the reins in 1981, remembers Bernard Poignant, deputy mayor (PS) historic of Quimper (Finistère) and friend of the entrepreneur.

He came to see me to explain the "social contract" he wanted to put in place.

A safeguard plan which involved a reduction of 20 to 25% of wages.

"The former political advisor to François Hollande remembers a young man of 29, not hesitating to climb onto pallets to convince the 400 employees.

“Already at the time, he was a leader of men.

The three unions CGT, CFDT and FO have signed.

A real tour de force.

"

Visionary, Vincent Bolloré also bet from the 1990s on electric mobility.

From its site in Brittany, it gave birth to the Bluecar, a small 100% electric car.

Its showcase, Autolib ', will democratize self-service carsharing in Ile-de-France between 2011 and 2018. Today, he is eyeing the media, convinced that their situation will turn around.

In his viewfinder?

The magazine press group Prisma Media (GEO, Capital ...) and the two Lagardère nuggets: Hachette and Europe 1.

"Bolloré is a business genius, but not an industrialist in the pure sense," analyzes a former member of the Canal + group, who had the longest strike with i-Télé in a private media.

There is no equal when it comes to unearthing weakened boxes, putting in a reasonable stake and then becoming a majority shareholder sooner or later.

On the other hand, he does things as he pleases, in a continual power struggle.

Even if it means emptying the company of what made all its interest.

"

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Few, in the end, managed to make him beat a retreat.

Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, can be proud of it.

In the fall of 2015, Vincent Bolloré had bought 10% of the capital and threatened a takeover.

The boss of the video game group had denounced an "assault".

Following a Homeric conflict, Vivendi finally sold its stake in Ubisoft three years later, pocketing a nice jackpot in the process.

Airlock sealed with political power circles

For 40 years of life in business, Vincent Bolloré has developed powerful networks in French capitalism, but not under the gilding of the Republic.

"I have never seen back from my services a single piece of information, of any kind, concerning him," sums up Michel Sapin, former Minister of the Economy and Finance under François Hollande.

I take it to his credit, because other great French captains of industry are much more pressing.

He is not in the confusion between family capitalism, the political world and high administration ”.

Is it worth a global certificate of good conduct?

"On Vincent Bolloré the African, there are surely things to criticize", slips another previous tenant of Bercy.

Taking advantage of a wave of privatizations, his group has acquired strategic infrastructure, railways and ports in West Africa.

In the 2010s, he even tried to complete the famous 3,000-kilometer loop that was to link Abidjan (Côte d'Ivoire) to Lomé (Togo).

VIDEO.

Bolloré's train to conquer Africa

1,200 km of track to be built.

The rest, in ruins, to be rehabilitated, at a total cost of 3 billion euros spread over a decade.

A pharaonic project, however, stopped dead after several troubled cases.

Including a conviction in 2018, following the derailment of a train in 2016 between Douala and Yaoundé (79 dead and more than 600 injured).

Camrail, its subsidiary, and eleven employees will be found guilty of "manslaughter".

The same year, Vincent Bolloré was also indicted in particular for “bribery of a foreign agent” in an investigation concerning the obtaining of port concessions in Guinea and Togo.

Enough to slow down, for a time, its ambitions on the African continent.

His overwhelming victory in France over the small world of round ball nonetheless proves, one year from retirement, that he has not lost any of his sense of dribbling.

Source: leparis

All business articles on 2021-02-06

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