France is home to the world’s richest person, the wealthiest woman and now the biggest dairy fortune.
Over the course of three generations, the secretive Besnier family has grown what began as an artisanal cheesemaking operation in northwestern France into Groupe Lactalis, one of the largest global food companies. The three siblings who own the closely held manufacturer — Jean-Michel, 55, Emmanuel, 52, and Marie, 42 — are now worth a combined US$14.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Their wealth eclipses the milk-based fortunes of Canada’s Lino Saputo and the US’ Jim Leprino, but remain far behind France’s top-ranking luxury tycoon Bernard Arnault, worth US$205 billion, and L’Oreal SA heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers at US$94.7 billion.
Photo: AFP
The Besnier fortune illustrates the global reach of a clutch of France’s ultra-rich, who oversee firms built from small operations into industry giants through expansion and acquisitions.
The country is increasingly dominating the luxury sector through family-controlled companies such as LVMH and Hermes International, while the Dassault descendants hold sway in aviation and the Saades in shipping.
For the Besniers, growth has also brought more scrutiny. Lactalis began publishing financial results in 2018, the year a crisis over salmonella-tainted baby formula put Emmanuel, the chief executive officer, in a political and media firestorm.
In February, the company was charged for failure to recall, aggravated deception and involuntary injuries in France and ordered to set aside 600,000 euros (US$657,384) pending the outcome of the case.
In recent weeks, pressure has increased over inflation, with the French government encouraging food manufacturers to pass on lower commodity prices for their products.
“We need to see this in supermarkets as soon as possible,” French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said last week.
Inflation helped drive Lactalis revenue up 28 percent last year to 28.3 billion euros, while higher costs pushed net profit down 14 percent to 384 million euros and squeezed returns to 1.4 percent, a company statement said.
“Our margins have been significantly eroded,” Christophe Piednoel, head of communications at Lactalis, said on April 21 on RMC radio. “We hope we can lower prices in the fourth quarter.”
The performance has made Lactalis the world’s 10th-biggest food company by sales, it said, just ahead of rival Danone SA and behind Heineken NV.
Lactalis has come a long way from 1933, when founder Andre Besnier made his first dozen or so Camembert cheeses — 17 to be exact — using milk collected near his western hometown of Laval, where the company is still based.
He expanded over the years into products like butter and cream. His son, Michel, took over in 1955 after Andre died, creating the President brand, exporting Brie to the US and making the first acquisitions.
When Michel died suddenly in 2000, Emmanuel took the helm at age 29 and has been chairman and CEO since.
He has overseen about 100 acquisitions worth billions of dollars, ranging from Italian mozzarella-maker Galbani to infant formula and yogurt businesses. Emmanuel’s brother, Jean-Michel, and sister, Marie, are directors.
Lactalis climbed to the top of Rabobank’s Global Dairy Top 20 annual ranking in 2021, leapfrogging Nestle SA after agreeing to buy Kraft Heinz Co’s natural cheese business for US$3.2 billion.
The French company got the Cracker Barrel and Knudsen brands in that deal, but not Philadelphia, Velveeta and Cheez Whiz. Some of the top milk companies are cooperatives like Dairy Farmers of America and Fonterra.
Lactalis is working on undoing a reputation for being tight-fisted with farmers. It said it paid higher prices than competitors for milk last year in a bid to help producers combat inflation.
“In 2023, we won’t lower the price we are paying to milk producers,” Piednoel said in the RMC interview.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS