Gérard Brémond, president and founder of Pierre et Vacances, on November 21, 2018 in Paris, photographed by AFP (AFP / Archives / JOEL SAGET)
“Visionary”, Gérard Brémond, 84 years old, passionate about jazz, built in fifty years the European leader of the Pierre et Vacances tourist residence of which he should soon lose control and management, if the recapitalization and modification agreement governance announced Monday is finalized.
Gérard Brémond dreamed of being a jazz musician. “A huge gap separated me not only from the geniuses of jazz, but even from good musicians”, he confided to AFP in 2007. So “I resigned myself to returning to construction, like my grandfather and my father “.
However, he is now the owner of TSF Jazz radio and of the Parisian jazz club the Duc des Lombards.
With a degree in economics in his pocket, Gérard Brémond was entrusted at the age of 27, by his father Robert Brémond, real estate developer, with the mountain resort project wanted by the Olympic ski champion Jean Vuarnet who would become Avoriaz, in the French Alps.
“Gérard Brémond is criticized for pouring concrete, but with Avoriaz, he had this vision before everyone else of a car-free resort, at + all on site +, while having the possibility of living the stay as you see fit”, emphasizes Didier Arino, director of the specialist firm Protourism.
Gérard Brémond speaks of it as “the chance of (his) life”, which occurred in the 60s: “I made Avoriaz, and Avoriaz made me. It became the founding act of a group of which I never imagined that it would take on such a dimension “.
Today the group, listed on the stock exchange since 1999, includes Pierre et Vacances, Center Parcs, Sunparks, Villages Nature Paris, Aparthotels Adagio and Maeva.com.
“Gérard Brémond is a great entrepreneur who has revolutionized the tourism market by inventing new financing and property techniques,” François Hollande, who knows him well, told AFP. “He has been able to revive places, both in the mountains and in rural areas,” adds the former President of the Republic.
– “Money is not its engine” –
With Pierre et Vacances, Gérard Brémond invented the concept of the “new property”: individuals buy, at reduced prices, apartments that they let him rent, while reserving residence rights. A concept that he applied “to the sea and to the mountains”, by buying land in Les Ménuires, Val d’Isère, Juan-les-Pins and Sainte-Maxime.
His peers salute his visionary character. Gérard Brémond “is a great creator, an extraordinary entrepreneur with a rare vision,” said Jean-François Rial, CEO of Voyageurs du monde. “He is a creator and a true entrepreneur”, adds Jacques Maillot, founder of Nouvelles Frontiers, to AFP.
For Didier Arino, “he is one of the rare great figures of French tourism” and “he is above all a visionary (…), he felt + the blows + like the takeover of Center Parcs”, in 2003.
“His real passion is real estate, not tourism which is only a tool. From this point of view, we can say that he is a real builder of innovative projects”, notes Jean-François Rial .
According to one of his former general managers Yann Caillère, “money is not his engine, he does not care”. “He’s a sick optimist, he still believes that everything will be sorted out,” he said.
The man who “decides everything” for 54 years at the head of his group and who has seen five general managers in 15 years, is “more a promoter than an operator,” said Didier Arino.
And that’s the rub.
“He is not interested in the operational part of exploitation”, confirms Yann Caillère, “once the project is carried out, the rest is not his problem. Which means that there is a lack of realism “,” he did not understand that his world had changed, “he said.
The “visionary” has “not felt the turn”, “what the promoter wins, the operator loses”, also believes Didier Arino.
“In this phase not easy for him, what is remarkable and worthy is that his only concern is that of the future of the group”, confided to AFP the current general manager Franck Gervais before the announcement of ‘financial restructuring.
© 2021 AFP
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