Max Théret

Max Théret (born January 6, 1913 in Paris , † February 25, 2009 in Neuilly-sur-Seine ) was a French entrepreneur and co-founder of the Fnac group.

Life

The beginning until 1950

His father, a veteran of the First World War , was an admirer of Aristide Briand and founded an association for youth exchanges between France and Germany in the 1920s. He was a committed enemy of the war and raised Max in this spirit. Max Théret took an early interest in politics and joined the socialist Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière . At the age of 18, after taking part in some judo and aikido courses, he took part in the physical clashes between fascists and leftists. Street fights were frequent occurrences in France in the early 1930s.

In 1932 he traveled to Spain to take part in the proclamation of the republic and met some young Spanish socialists. In 1934 he met Leon Trotsky in Barbizon . He became a member of a group of militant supporters who guarded Trotsky's residence in Barbizon, the Villa Ker Monique , day and night for a few months . In the autumn of 1934 he traveled again to Spain to take part in the miners' uprising in Asturias , and again in 1936, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War . Fought in the Republican army for two years. He kept two bullets from gunshot wounds in his left leg throughout his life.

At the beginning of the Second World War he was a soldier in the French army. After France's defeat in the western campaign , he was demobilized and opened a small photo studio in Paris in November 1940 . The store became the secret printing press for Notre révolution , one of the Trotskyists' hidden newspapers during the German occupation. A few months later, he opened another small business. Officially, it was a repair shop for defective telephone lines of the then state company PTT . Théret used the technology, however, to tap the telephone conversations of the political leadership collaborating with the occupation. He communicated its content to his superior Honoré Farat , a member of the Resistance . This showed himself to be recognizable after the war and promoted Théret to head of the PTT cooperative .

The years up to 1974 - acquisition of a large fortune

In the boom of the 1950s, Max Théret laid the foundation for his later fortune. In 1951 he turned his passion for photography, especially nude photography, which at the time was shamefully called photo de charme , into a business. He established a network of contacts with wealthy private customers and photographers and resold the photos for a good profit.

He then used his customer contacts for the great undertaking of his life. With the painter Fred Zeller , a prominent Trotskyist and member of the Masonic Lodge Grand Orient de France , he met André Essel , who was also part of the Trotskyist movement . Together with him, he founded the Fédération nationale d'achats des cadres ( national purchasing association for management cadres ) at the beginning of 1954 , the nucleus of today's Fnac group. The two founders had both commercial and political goals in mind with their company. “We wanted to improve workers' purchasing power by increasing incomes. The same result can be achieved by lowering prices, ”wrote André Essel in his 1985 memoir.

Thanks to favorable conditions with suppliers, Fnac was able to undercut market prices by 15% to 40%. The success came in the form of tremendous growth: from the first start in a five-room apartment in Paris, the company grew to a company with 2,000 employees and a turnover of 768 million francs in 1977. In that year the founders sold theirs Shares in French consumer cooperatives, the Coop .

The late years - using his fortune for political ends, and the Pechiney scandal

Now, at the age of 60, Max Théret had an enormous fortune. He used part of it for political purposes: with generous donations he supported the Parti Socialiste and in 1974 and 1981 the election campaigns of the later President François Mitterrand . Even during the presidency of Mitterrand, Max le menace ( Max the Menace ), as Minister Pierre Bérégovoy jokingly called him, continued these financial contributions.

In 1982, he tried the press entrepreneur Robert Hersant the newspaper France Soir abzukaufen. For the left, this was linked to the hope of bringing a large daily newspaper into their sphere of influence. However, the plan failed. In 1985 he took part in Le Matin de Paris , which was in financial difficulties. For this daily, however, the injection of capital brought only one delay: it was discontinued in January 1988.

In autumn 1988, Max Théret bought 32,000 shares in the American company Triangle Industries . A week later, the Pechiney group bought its subsidiary American National Can . The price gain that Théret was able to achieve with the Triangle shares was around 9 million francs. The French stock exchange regulator accused Théret of insider trading . The affair turned into a political scandal when it was suspected that Théret had a confidante of Mitterrand, Roger-Patrice Pelat , involved in the deal. Théret was brought to trial and, after a trial lasting several years, was sentenced in September 1993 to two years in prison and a fine of 2.5 million francs for insider trading. In the appeal hearing, this judgment was confirmed 9 months later and became final.

After his death on February 25, 2009, Max Théret was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris .

literature

• Thomas Wieder: Max Théret . Le Monde , March 2, 2009, p. 25.

References and comments

1. ↑ «Nous voulions par l'augmentation des salaires améliorer le pouvoir d'achat des travailleurs. Si on leur obtient des réductions des prix, on concourt au même résultat. »Quote from Thomas Wieder: Max Théret . Le Monde, March 2, 2009, p. 25.
2. ↑ Not to be confused with German and Swiss cooperatives and companies of the same name

Web links

• Biography of Max Théret at AFP (French)