An Expensive Tune

In the early ‘90’s I foresaw that, for Mergers and Acquisitions professionals (my specialty) the Hungarian Government’s decision to start privatizing the businesses  nationalized by the Communist regime in the ‘50’s promised rich ‘pickins’. So I opened an office in Budapest to take advantage of the situation. (I still spoke fluent Hungarian).

Initially, my gamble paid off. I completed three very financially rewarding transactions within thirteen months – the sale of a large brewery, the merger of a significant key-manufacturer with its competitor, and the privatization of a trucking company. 

One morning in the fifteenth month the telephone rang and my secretary passed the call straight to me: the caller spoke only French and she did not. He turned out to be Monsieur M., the Regional Manager of the French Groupe Hersant Media, the owner of a number of newspapers in the region, one of which was the Magyar Nemzet (Hungarian Nation) the most influential daily of Hungary.

Monsieur M. explained that the Hersant Group wished to sell the paper and asked if I would help him to find a buyer. I jumped at the opportunity because I thought I knew just the man who would be strongly motivated to make the acquisition: the owner of Quebecor Inc, –  Pierre Peladeau.

Quebecor, founded in 1965 by Peladeau had, by the early 1990’s, become a significant Printing and Media company with International holdings after having swallowed the likes of the Donohue Forestry and Printing giant and Robert Maxwell’s, the British Media mogul’s, bankrupt empire.

The Hersant Group was headed by Robert Hersant, a French newspaper magnate. He had been a leader in the pro-Nazi youth movement during the Vichy wartime years, but after prison time, he built a major newspaper empire and engaged in conservative politics. (At the time of his death in 1996 he operated 40 publications and employed 8,000 people, but failed in his leap into television.)

The Group owned Le Figaro and France Soir and had purchased Magyar Nemzet in 1991 after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when Hersant extended his activities to eastern Europe by purchasing a large number of publications in the region that gained him the nickname of Papivore.

Peladeau and Hersant – a perfect match, or so I thought. After four months of trying, I knew better.

It took a third-of-a-year of back-and-forth to come up with a meeting-date acceptable to both of these two willful men who insisted on playing upmanship right from the gitgo.

Finally, the great day arrived. The night before the meeting, Peladeau and his entourage checked into the Paris Bristol Hotel, as did I. (The place is one of the most expensive caravanserais in the world).

But …I wanted to be on hand early the next morning, just in case… Around noon we walked up Rue du Faubourg Saint Honore to Robert Hersant’s Hotel Particulier where the two Media moguls were scheduled to meet for lunch.

Initially, all went well although it soon became obvious that Peladeau’s publishing philosophy was far more populist than Hersant’s. Then lunch was served and when the main course arrived someone turned on the gramophone. The sweet music of Sydney Bechet filled the room. I looked up to from where the music emanated and I said. “Petite Fleur.”

Hersant turned to me. “Are you interested in Jazz?”

“Very much. In fact, last summer in Antibes, I was allowed to sit in on Sydney Bechet’s orchestra as back-up drummer when we played his opener which you surely know is “Petite Fleur.”

That was it!

Hersant lost interest in the Magyar Nemzet deal and spent most of the remaining time of our visit talking with me about Jazz.

I could never get Peladeau and Hersant to meet again and the deal never materialized.

My fault! I should have known that Hersant was a very serious Jazz aficionado.

LISTEN TO “PETITE FLEUR“