Rodolphe Saadé just before beating Xavier Niel in La Provence
After a year of bitter fighting, the belligerents decided to sign the armistice. CMA-CGM, Rodolphe Saadé’s group, announced on Tuesday 30 April World), concerning the press group La Provence. Mr. Niel finally agrees to sell the 11% he holds there, leaving the shipowner alone in the race to take 89% of the capital from the hands of the group in judicial liquidation by Bernard Tapie, who died in October 2021 End of all pending legal proceedings. The Bobigny court must rule on the final sale of the group on September 30th.
“I welcome this agreement. It will allow us to work with all employees of Provence and from Corse morning [du groupe La Provence] to implement our development and refurbishment project”said Rodolphe Saadé in a message to the World. This surprising epilogue caught La Provence staff by surprise, who expected the conflict to stall for months to come. “We are between relief at finally having prospects and amazement. We’re almost surprised it ended like this.”responded Eric Breton, Secretary of the Social and Economic Committee (CSE).
We could make a link between this press release and Emmanuel Macron’s trip to Algeria, attended by Xavier Niel and Rodolphe Saadé. In fact, it was the judicial bankruptcy trustee Marc Sénéchal who took the initiative earlier this summer to bring the two billionaires together, sending them the following message: Without prejudging its outcome, the ongoing court case could last ten years. In the meantime, La Provence may have closed. For his part, the judicial bankruptcy trustee was ready to fight in court to have the right of consent that Xavier Niel had in the group, which allowed him to block the operation, be overturned. With that, Rodolphe Saadé was able to win the fight, since he had made an offer of 80 million euros, well above the estimates of the experts, which ranged between 25 and 45 million euros from a good source.
A joint printer
The founder of Free, facing resistance from part of the editorial team and the current CEO of La Provence, Jean-Christophe Serfati, supported by Rodolphe Saadé, decided to give in. Not without pocketing a little bonus. While he kept saying privately that a loss-making newspaper was worth nothing, he fetched a higher price for his 11% than the 80 million proposed by Rodolphe Saadé for 89% of the 9 million capital. A sum that seems ridiculous for the shipowner, whose group is expected to make a profit of 15 billion euros in the first half of 2022.
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