An American in Paris

The Malta Independent



Jean Marie Messier, the ousted CEO of the French conglomerate of Vivendi Universal, was as American as any French could be.

For years since the French reached the pinnacle of international football he was idolised as the French who could beat the Americans at their own business games.` He took a timid cash rich French utility and construction group and through an aggressive policy of mergers and acquisitions, leveraged the group`s financing to turn it into an international force diversifying the core businesses into telecoms and media.

`Messier`s major sin was to forget that he is French and started behaving like an American in Paris.`



For Messier, luck ran out just about the same time the French national football team crashed out of the World Cup in its first round without scoring a single goal. Not because Messier did anything differently from what is expected of an international CEO with responsibility to a wide international shareholding base.` Quite the contrary.` Messier`s major sin was to forget that he is French and started behaving like an American in Paris.

His major sin was firing the head of` French media company Canal Plus,` and insisting on economies and re-structuring which would have turned the company from perpetual loss-making to profitability.` In the process it would also cut major funding to French filming industry which is considered as a national cultural necessity.` And all this to satisfy a diversified international group of shareholders who started comparing the high returns Vivendi made from its investment in Universal to the losses it made from its investment in Canal Plus.

The French `salotto buono` consisting of the highest political figures and a circle of back-scratching French business leaders would have none of Messier excessive American style and he was turned from a hero into a villain in the course of just a few days.

`If an American could not survive in Paris I need little imagination to deduce how far can a Maltese go even though we may share the same food and drink as the French at the EU Table.`



Directors who tacitly accepted or openly supported his aggressive leadership style suddenly withdrew their support. They no longer enjoyed business exchanges over golf games with Messier. Following signals of revolt Messier was kept in place only as long as it was necessary to find a conservative French successor lest a truly American successor was imposed by the cross Atlantic shareholding base.

When the successor was chosen and approved by the French `salotto buono` the top European Banks with generous lines of credit to Vivendi Universal were roped in to give Messier the final coup d`etat.

By threatening to curb credit lines and suddenly becoming much less accommodating in re-negotiating the maturity structure of the company`s debt exposure, the share price of Vivendi was sent into a tail-spin forcing Messier to head for the exit door.` He must have realised that the French will always remain French and that one American in Paris will not change the traditional French affinity to their cultural pride and to protecting their quite unique way of doing things.

There are lessons to be learned for our current experience of negotiating to become fully accredited members of the EU. In a 1997 interview given by Dr Simon Busuttil, currently Head of MIC, he had argued that when Labour government froze the application in 1996 there were some who were pleased as they did not wish to see Malta having the same rights as the big countries.

The notion is that if Malta joins the EU as a full member we will have the same rights as France. If an American could not survive in Paris I need little imagination to deduce how far can a Maltese go even though we may share the same food and drink as the French at the EU Table. An Amercian in Paris was allowed to have his way but only until it served French interest. Can we expect differently`