And become a banker he continues to apply

November 18, 2011 12:00 AM

Her low voice and stature of rugby player make him a banker to share. His only concession to the codes of the profession, outside its costumes with stripes would be Davidoff cigars that he smokes in any end of the field, if it was cigarillos without great report with "Chair bars" that have many of his peers. In his extensive and comfortable Office overlooking the Seine, the President of the Groupe Banque Populaire, Philippe Dupont, can sketch out a smile. If he is not the approach distinguished but sometimes proud of certain major patterns or the arrogance of some enarques, he did not came to carry out the operation of the year in his sector. The approximation of the Banques Populaires with Caisses d'Epargne agreement, beginning of June, gives rise to the second player in detail in France activities, based on the fourth Bank financing and investment of the hexagon "plants". This thought, the greedy eye his eyebrows in battle, he can be jubilant.

With such a partnership, Philippe Dupont does not merely to give life to the dream of his predecessor, Jacques Delmas-Marsalet. It is the way. Despite a rather favourable to the squirrel force a priori report, it allows his group to remain master of its destiny in pulling the parity in the capital of the future holding NatIxis, which re main subsidiaries and two mutual trades by the end of the year. After having persuaded Charles Milhaud, Caisses d'Epargne pattern, that is the price, he even obtained the Chair of the Executive Board. This could be the coronation of an already long and busy career.

The desire to learn

However, fifty-five years ago, Philippe Dupont is not, far from it, at the age of his reverence. It must be said that it was quite early. An accident of health of his father, Max Dupont, the precipitates in the large bath at only twenty-four years old. A master of management place Dauphine in Pocket, he decides to abandon his PhD Bank and funds to take the reins of the family business of trading in grain, will become CEO for 30 years and will quadruple the workforce by a quarter of a century, with 150 employees. He joined two years later the Council of the Banque Populaire in the region West of Paris, which his father was already an administrator and client. When he became number one in thirty-six years, has never seen more young President. Do him only three years old to enter the Union Council of Banques Populaires, the center of the group. Finally, it is even not "quinqua" when it accesses the head of a set of 45,000 people today.

This rapid ascent, served by the vagaries of life, gives it the meaning and a taste of the responsibilities. It also allows him to gain valuable experience over the years. As the grandson of meunier invests in each of its mandates. He works, he observes, he learns. By acquiring two port elevators at Rouen and le Havre, he endorses without complex his habit of contractor. In passing its nights to cover its positions on the Chicago Board of Trade, he is familiar with the functioning of commodity markets. Representing in Brussels for the grain world interests in its negotiations with the European Commissioner for Agriculture, it includes any interest to be at the forefront. The information is first-hand. The interlocutors of the first order.

Listen to his instincts

The method pays. And become a banker, he continues to apply. "I was not predestined to do this job." "When you called me, I said present", he says today, falsely modest. With some success. The head of one of the richest Banques Populaires of the group, he learned the retail bank, that it is soon on the fingertips. Same involvement in the Trade Union Council, which he is so active that he was not slow to become Vice President. Little by little, he acquires a genuine legitimacy internally.

Because, if Philippe Dupont is a man of networks, it is primarily on internal networks. One of the Presidents of Banques Populaires, on which he gained little by little of the influence, particularly in the "club of Presidents", an informal circle where one Exchange of views. One of the Directors General, also, who learned to appreciate. "In arguing for a reversal of the pyramidal organization of power, which was the base of the device and the chambre syndicale's Summit, of the Banques Populaires he had intelligence to hold a speech that appealed to the Presidents and general managers", says Dominique Tulasne, responsible for the communication of the group until 1999. "He has gradually acquired a genuine aura", recalled the Director-General of a Banque Populaire. So he was elected unanimously (less a voice, his own) in 1999 and renewed in the same way in 2002 and 2005. Each time A secret ballot.

It is as if his seven years at the head of the Group were now their fulfilment in the NatIxis operation. First, he received the amendment of legislation to transform the Union ex-chambre of the Banques Populaires, simple association law 1901 Federal Bank. With the integration of Natexis, he then completed the Organization of the group into three levels (capitalist, federal and cooperative) and put in order of battle. He has finally been adopted by almost all of the Group (BRED apart) a common computing platform and has restricted the number of Banques Populaires regional 30-19, bringing the territory they cover of European regions, while sequential decision making.

The rest is matter of Audacity and tactical sense. And Philippe Dupont no shortage. At the time of its accession to the head of the co-operative Group, in 1999, where he had take advantage of weariness of the network on governance practices deemed too centralising, he found the right moment for NatIxis. "This is a very good strategist and an excellent tactician," summarizes François David, the President of Coface. Also effective manoeuvring that his predecessor was visionary, he knows assess situations, assess the balance of power, listen to his instincts. This applies to external. So decides, for the benefit of the network of the Banques Populaires, to acquire the Coface, which he called the ability to compete

the CWACS market domestic credit insurance. As for internally. "He has a very great political sense." "He feels well enough what will pass and which less well risk pass", says the leader of a Banque Populaire. This asset, major in a decentralized group, allows, upstream, to prepare decisions with more of care that they announce difficult. With François Ladam, Bruno Mettling and Michel Goudard, his staff, he spends hours. The boards of Directors of the Federal Bank are prepared with as much attention as the plenary to which all the Presidents and general managers are invited.

If necessary, he consults. It then uses the structures he himself has put in place upon his arrival, after the failure of the resumption of the credit du Nord by the Banques Populaires, that through the rigidities of the decision-making process. Its objective: that each regional leader is, in one way or another, the national life of the group. "It is a way to anchor people, says a close." No one can then blamed of having not been informed. "A way to make the conditions for a possible consensus.

After that, it's coming. "To the Banques Populaires, it is very rugby, please summarize Philippe Dupont. Decisions are taken after open discussions and sometimes virile debates. But, once the fixed cap, everyone grows in the same sense as in a melee. "For the former player before becoming captain of the team of the lycée Hoche in Versailles, he started in his family of Chevreuse fief, where its Ardeche grandfather founded in 1911 the first club of Ile-de-France , the Ovalie is not only a passion to share the weekend with the Presidents of Banques Populaires regional stage. It is almost a way of being.

Right to the goal

Some criticize him sometimes to be authoritarian. "When I feel that a decision is matured, I am proof of determination, he explains." Otherwise, I accept the delay and to return when the time comes. "He knows then convince, playing with a charisma served by its like a pillar. "I was helped by my physics, acknowledges." I have always been rather strong, with a voice rather serious that burly. When I say something, I say this fort. "And he does not hesitate to repeat. Thus, when some regional leaders reluctant to implement cooperative certificates of investment project NatIxis, he personally set up the niche. It finding the minutes of the boards of Directors of each Banque Populaire. Retrieves the undecided. Call them or encounters one after the other to take their membership. "I am 99 of power conviction and 1 of authority," he jokes often.

To persuade, he is not afraid to be direct. At the risk of pushing. "It ' was never misunderstanding, says his friend Ulrich Brixner, Chairman of the Board of DZ Bank, to which it will succeed in the fall at the head of the International Confederation of popular banks." When it negotiates, it clearly announces the color. ""He loves to the point, confirms a regional Bank President. This is something that some appreciate, that others may find shocking, even irritating. "Remains to know which category to rangera Dominique Ferrero, the former Director General of the Crédit Lyonnais called to become the number two at the head of NatIxis. The man, in any case, respect the given word. "Philippe knows its commitments and remain faithful to his convictions," said businessman Vincent Bolloré, Director of Natexis since May 2004.

Allergic to the social whirl

Even if it has affinities with some large bosses, Philippe Dupont is not amateur social whirl. "It does cheat, pleasant one of his collaborators." You will never see the at the France Stadium for a meeting of football. "If he participates in monthly dinners of the century, a club which brings together the gotha of affairs, it is"once from time to time. And if it is part of the Afep, the lobby of the large private companies, which it considers that it is in its functions. He sees policies, but, according to a close, "has found the right distance. His liberal views are assumed, without ostentation. His Gaullist heritage his father was resistant and his Catholic beliefs, that does not hide can give to think about those who say the Freemason.

This does not prevent it from dropping his phone to activate its contacts when needed. On the operation of NatIxis, it fire all wood. He asked some friends to relay the word to their own networks. It relies on communication and lobbying professionals to deal with the Caisse des Dépôts, openly hostile to the operation. The patterns of Banques Populaires, most know that a member of Parliament, which a Senator, will do the rest. Deal with the Paris establishment, it is an another establishment which is to the manoeuvre. One of the France of the regions.

And regions, he knows. His apartment of Beauséjour boulevard, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, has made him forget or the comfort of "its old bourgeois House to the century-old plane trees" where it goes, as an internal newsletter intended to present it on his election to the Presidency in July 1999, "recharging every weekend in the city of Chevreuse". Or the simplicity of the House inherited from the family of his wife, Belle-Ile. He found his "tribe". The family is a value which has for this man married since the age of twenty-one years, father of three children who already gave her two granddaughters.

Even if he had to give up, time to hunting "to the small and big, furry or pen" and fishing at the bar on his small boat in Brittany, it is still sometimes a local fisherman to take him away, at 4 o'clock in the morning, "back traps the cool at the edge of the foals". A Chevreuse, it raises even 60 chickens... exclusively fed with grain from the family Corporation. Today, it is more. After to have entrusted the reins to his former colleagues in 1999, he finally sold. Or, rather, backing onto a more powerful group. "This has not been an easy decision, recognizes today." But he had to take it.