Arnaud Lagardère: “Our empire has not shrunk, it has reinvented itself”

After difficult years which forced its CEO Arnaud Lagardère to give up the sponsorship guaranteeing him control of the group founded by his father, Lagardère came out of the red last year, with a net profit of 161 million euros. Its turnover increased by 28%, to 6.9 billion euros. While Lagardère awaits authorization from Brussels to come under the control of Vivendi, it is doubling its ambitions for the group.

Le Figaro. – How did your group perform in 2022?

Arnaud LAGARDERE. – This is a historic rebound for Lagardère, with an increase in our operating profit to 438 million euros in 2022. Our empire has not shrunk over the years as some have suggested, it has simply reinvented. The strategic break from our conglomerate structure, initiated at the time of the death of my father Jean-Luc Lagardère, gave us the means to bet and invest massively in travel retail and publishing activities…