Why did Look owners seek Tapie?

As I'm watching "Class Act" on Netflix, I'm suddenly back with Look bindings and its demise in the hands of the megalomaniac Bernard Tapie. 

Back in 1983, when Look was in big trouble with an $8 million loss for sales of $20 million and a debt of $27 million, mostly held by the French bank BNP, Roland Cattin, the Beyl’s son in law was sent to Tahiti in July 1983 to meet with Bernard Tapie in order, one might think, “to save the day” or see if some miracle was possible in the hands of the French Jesus-Christ of business. 

Talk about going to the Devil in hope to secure one’s entry into Heaven! The point of that piece is not how bad Tapie was, we know it already, but why did Jean and Huguette Beyl not look for a solution closer to their industry and without the peril that Tapie represented to any troubled enterprise?

In particular, why didn’t they turn to Rossignol’s Laurent Boix-Vives who knew them well and was one company that offered $15 million in 1987, just before it would be gobbled up from Tapie by Blum the owner of Ebel watches for $40 million! Rossignol would have provided the Beyls would have provided the Beyls with an honorable exit, unlike the hellish transition Tapie had in store for them. 

If not Rossignol, then the Beyls should have turned to Alois Rohrmoser (Atomic) or Joseph Fischer (Fischer/Kästle) and probably many more potential candidates. Who got the idea to travel to the opposite side of the globe to go and beg Tapie? Roland Cattin? Madame Beyl? Her husband?

Didn’t they knew the man was a predator? Shouldn’t they have looked at Tapie’s current collection of acquisitions, made a few phone calls to see how these acquisitions unfolded in reality, and do some kind of due-diligence? 

This was until now totally mystifying to me, but I was about to find the answer to my question… (To be continued)

Is Tapie the French Trump?

During the 2016 Republican Primary, Trump made a splashy entry on the US political scene. At first, we found his little show quite entertaining, but soon our amusement turned into nightmare, as he got into the White House. 

Back in those days, I had told my wife: “Trump is the American version of France’s Bernard Tapie!” I think I was right, and between Trump, Tapie and Berlusconi, the three men shares a lot in terms of being swindlers, politicians, sport team owners and entertainers. 

Unlike Trump, Tapie wasn’t born into money and this is probably why he could end up becoming French president. Interestingly, Tapie built his fortune and reputation by preying on failing companies during the 1980s. 

Typically, in those days he would buy a company for one token franc (about 15 cents), purchase the debt, generally owned by a state-controlled bank for pennies on the dollar, then recast the original debt amount as receivable owned to him, rig the accounting and find a sucker to buy the company later for a huge amount of money. 

It worked like that: 

• La Vie Claire (organic food stores) bought in 1980 for 15 cents and resold for (only) $1.5 million to Distriborg in 1995.
• Terraillon (bathroom scales) bought in 1981 for 15 cents and sold for $19 million to Measurement Specialties in 1986. 
• Look (ski bindings) bought in 1983 for 15 cents and sold $40 million to Ebel watches in 1988.  
• Testut (scales) bought in 1983 for 15 cents and sold by the French government for an undisclosed amount to Mettler-Toledo in 1999. 
• Wonder (household batteries) bought in 1984 for 15 cents and sold for $72 million to Ralston in 1988. 
• Donnay (tennis rackets) bought in 1988 for 15 cents and sold $15 million to a Belgian government agency in 1991, etc. 

All along, Tapie was in cahoots with then French president, François Mitterand who used taxpayers money to forgive the discounted bank debt. 

This of course was just the beginning of Tapie’s checkered career that involved being a TV personality, a sport team owner, the heister of Adidas, a politician, a jail prisoner and even a stint as a comedian. 

To this day, Tapie’s populist flair still enjoys a fair amount of favorable opinions in France in spite of his highly questionable path to fame. 

As you can see, Trump has some way to go before he catches up with my (infamous) countryman!

My take on Netflix’s Class Act (Tapie)

We went through the full episode of the mini-series and for the most part, liked it thoroughly. It depicted a twin brother of sorts for Donald Trump, albeit a much better salesman, that makes Bernard Tapie a significantly greater demagogue than his (taller) American counterpart, perhaps just because of his upbringing. 

True, unlike Trump, Tapie seemed to have known (to a limited extent) that it was easier to catch flies with honey than with vinegar! 

What’s remarkable for both was their ability to create huge numbers of hard-core supporters that love the way the two characters were flaunting civility, social rules, basic morality and contempt for the rule of law, and where the shining examples of what they could freely think and hopefully accomplish the day these people would gain access to power. 

Both gave these folks proxies for what they were covertly coveting… Watching these episodes comforted my initial reaction when in 2015, I discovered the Trump modus operandi and exclaimed “This is the American version of Tapie!” 

That said, and out of the seven episodes, I liked the first two a lot and the very last one (episode seven) the best when Tapie encounters the prosecutor that will eventually send him to jail. That recreation is priceless and is an allegory of God’s final judgment!

So my final take is simple, watch these series, it’s good entertainment and yet another primer in bullying techniques, social abuse and steps to authoritarianism!

Tapie coming to American living rooms!

If you are a regular reader of this blog you will have seen that I’ve never been a fan of Bernard Tapie, the French company raider and one the most iconic and controversial French public figures, but totally unknown in America. 

Throughout the seven episodes of a new Netflix series that we began watching this week, we’ve seen the comedian Laurent Lafitte step into the shoes of Tapie, showing us his meteoric rise. 

Just like I have written so many times, cut in the same cloth as our own Donald Trump. 

When we’re done watching it, we’ll let you know how close it is to reality. and fall. After seeing just a few episodes, the recreation looks like the real thing and provides a faithful description of “Creepy Bernard”, as I like to call him.

The Tapie and Trump m.o.

Recently, as Bernard Tapie, France’s Trump equivalent, passed away after a long battle with cancer, I watched a few documentaries about the man, and each time, I couldn’t help but compare him to Trump. 

I have already written enough about the man in trying to describe his evil side, but what I observed was the strong and lasting loyalty he was able to impress upon his base and his convinced followers. 

Just like Trump, Tapie stood as the poster boy for nefarious charisma and for a remarkable ability to convert millions of simple minded folks to his “sect” of populism and naive solutions to huge problems, with always one great family of powerful shortcuts: big talk, lies and deception. 

Both men are smart, stubborn and cunning, yet they are narcissist and only think about themselves. 

Sometime I even wonder if both men have soaked into their false and devious beliefs for so long that they now sincerely thought they were the absolute truth. 

Trump and Tapie are frightening, because they clearly show the road to easy brainwashing of entire nations, fast transition to tyranny and end of democracy.

Purchase of Look bindings by Rossignol

This is the follow-up to my previous posting regarding what really triggered the sale of Look bindings to Rossignol skis back in 1994. A short bit of history first; Look was founded in Nevers, France by Jean Beyl, an avid skier in 1951. The company that started with a 360 degree plate binding called the “Antifracture” did at first very well with its Nevada double-pivot toe unit paired up with a basic turntable heel that equipped all the famous ski racers of the time. It was then followed by the Nevada II and N-17 (a.k.a. Grand-Prix) combination that remain a classic for many winter seasons. Selling almost exclusively to the high-performance users and unable to sell to the masses, Look unsuccessfully tried to compete in the entry-level to mid-price segments where it was out-marketed by Salomon. Management miscalculations also contributed to the brand going bankrupt in 1982 when it was picked up by Bernard Tapie a corporate raider, high on PR and low on business acumen. Tapie added the German-made Geze ski bindings to the package but the enterprise continued to flounder and its assets were mostly held by a subsidiary of the Credit Lyonnais a.k.a. “Crazy Lyonnais,” a French bank that had engineered the Look and Adidas buy-out by Tapie. Later, Pierre-Alain Blum, the owner of Ebel watches took over the firm along with Authier skis but failed to re-energize it. In 1993, as the conservative regain control of the French Assembly, Laurent Boix-Vives’ friends suggested it was time to pick up Look as Ebel was looking to unload its unsuccessful acquisition. Stripped from most of its debt, the ski binding division was repackaged into an offer that Skis Rossignol couldn’t refuse, and in 1998 the bike division of the company was then sold to Dominique Bergin and became Look Cycle International; knowing Mr. Boix-Vives, it’s very likely that Rossignol recouped more than its overall purchase price on that later sale. Where Olle Larson might be right, however is that upon taking over Look, Rossignol looked at its product and determined that the Geze toe (the system licensed to manufacture the inexpensive Salomon 222) was not only a good combination with the Look turntable heel but was also much cheaper to manufacture. The turntable heel has now been abandoned in racing and replaced by a crude heel-unit reminiscent of the lackluster Look 27 from 1980. In hindsight, and I must confess to my surprise, Rossignol has succeeded in resurrecting Look by streamlining the line and putting its entire organizational horsepower behind the effort.

Ciao Berlusconi!

The colorful Italian media tycoon, politician, and billionaire who was also prime minister at several points from 1994 to 2011, passed away recently, rejoining somewhere, above or below us, his French counterpart Bernard Tapie. 

Even more so than Tapie, Berlusconi enjoyed a long and tumultuous life and was given a great state funeral. As you might expect, I have very little sympathy for the man, as I did for Tapie, and deeply believe that the duo was cut from the same cloth as our embattled Donald Trump.

My only question at this point is when will Trump decide to rejoin the pair and create havoc in heaven or hell depending on the reunited trio’s final destination?

From business to politics, jail and show-business

A few nights ago we watched “Oscar” a French vaudeville starring, among others actors, Bernard Tapie. Well, that character is one of a kind and started his public career as a high-flying entrepreneur and LBO expert with lesser-known companies all the way to Adidas. He then became a politician, French cabinet member, owned a sport team, went to jail for a while and is now... an actor! I never liked the guy; I thought he was an egomaniac and epitomized everything I didn't like about greed, business and politics.

What was remarkable though, is while Regan and Schwarzenegger had cleared a path from acting to politics, our man had accomplished the exact opposite! To return to the show, while the rest of the cast was pretty dismal and I had some very strong biases against him, Tapie did a fairly good job and led me to think that he finally had found his true calling; I just fell sorry that it took him so long and he had to go through such a tortuous set of circumstances to discover it!

Madame Huguette Beyl, 1921-2021

This past week, I learned that Mrs. Beyl, wife of Look ski bindings founder, the late Jean Beyl, passed away after she had celebrated her 100th birthday earlier this year, on January 2. 

She was the person who gave me my first job as well as my big break into the wholesale ski industry and I will always be thankful to her from trusting me and letting me into that tightly closed business in which everyone would give their first born to get a job ! 

Tough, pragmatic and very perceptive, she could read people well (at least that’s what I firmly believe since she thought so highly of me!) and, if anything, she understood and appreciated her retailers. 

She and her husband got shafted by Bernard Tapie, but what goes around comes around, and today Tapie, with his stolen millions, remains a poor and a pityful soul. 

I’ll miss Madame Beyl, as we used to call her, and hope she’s now in a great place after an exceptional long and productive life.

Fifty years ago, trip to Stans…

I still remember a trip I made fifty years ago, in March 1975 with Jean-Michel Lamy, sales director at Look. We flew from Charles de Gaulle to Zurich, Switzerland, to meet Gaston Haldemann, importer and distributor of Rossignol, Nordica, and Look in that country, and Kaspar Heutschi, his sales director. 

The meeting took place at Haldemann's offices in Stans, a small mountain town in the heart of Switzerland, in the canton of Niedwalden, an hour's drive south of Zurich. I knew the town because it was the home of the famous short-takeoff aircraft Pilatus Porter. 

Lamy, recruited from Peugeot in central France, had absolutely no idea about the ski industry and was a bit like a fish out of water, while Haldemann, who had devoted his entire life, energy, and passion to skiing, knew what he was talking about. 

An engineer by training, he was the inventor of the Rossignol Fiberglass, a hollow-core slalom ski that Adrien Duvillard had taken to America in 1963, where he scored some victories in the early days of the professional circuit. 

We had gone there to discuss the future of Look's racing program and its place within the company. Haldemann was neither impressed by the impact of ski racing on sales, nor enthralled by the way Look was run, particularly by the company's lack of innovation. 

The meeting had achieved little, but it had called into question the costly investment the company was making in its racing department. Clear-eyed, I realized that this cost would ultimately strangle the company's future, resulting in its takeover by Bernard Tapie in 1983 for one symbolic French franc.

Finally, Netflix brings us Raël!

We must have been living under a rock ever since we moved to America in 1977 to ignore the sect imagined by Claude “Raël” Vorilhon and celebrated its 50th birthday by becoming a Netflix series. 

While this guy must have been consumed by a similar narcissism as Donald Trump, Jim Jones, Bernard Tapie and the rest of them, he managed to get out of jail and instead, roamed the world to infect more countries and cultures with his far-fetched philosophy. 

The series was disappointing in the fact it missed the sacrosanct connection between religious beliefs and money, but forced us to do more research and find other TV shows that showed us just that aspect. Unless you are as ignorant as us about Monsieur Vorilhon, just ignore that series! 

Another dream

As I've said before, I have a hard time remembering dreams. Last night, I had that dream in which I was working with a man called Richard Mamez (he used to be the director of marketing for Look in France, just before the company was acquired by the French raider Bernard Tapie) and he was harassing me.

I wonder what Richard who is about my age does these days (he's probably retired too) but he should stop poking needles in his voodoo doll called Go11!

Unimpressed by Macron

A couple of days ago, Bernard Tapie, the celebrated national tycoon passed away in France. 

Yet,the big mouth fraudster was lauded by president Emmanuel Macron who wrote an op-ed praising the man in the southern press where the man used to enjoy a certain modicum of popularity, even though he owes the government of France some 400 million euros and left so many of my countrymen unhappy in his wake. 

In my view, his best achievement has been his singing career (see video below). 

Explain that one to me? Is Macron so afraid about is upcoming reelection that he has to pander to a bandit? 

His behavior is eluding, if not revolting me, and simply would turn me away from picking that man as my leader if I were still voting in France. 

Roland Cattin, 1948-2014

Road biking is dangerous, not just for the falls caused by car traffic or other reasons, but because many a mature rider has lost their life due to the shear efforts the sport demands.

This happened this past Sunday, October 19, when Roland Cattin, CEO and founder of Time Sport International, passed away near his home in Paris, following a bicycle ride. The cause of death was a heart attack.

Roland was my boss for two years when I still was working with Look ski bindings and I remember him as an intensely passionate business person. He landed into the ski business through his first marriage to the daughter of Look founders and did the very best he could to save the company before it was acquired by Bernard Tapie.

He was a good and very fair boss to me. I'll never forget his stark intensity and commitment to his mission. He'll be missed an awful lot.