Albert Frere

"Most notable among this group, besides Paul Desmarais, was Albert Frere, a man about Desmarais’s age, who seems a Belgian counterpart of Desmarais. He came out of the petite bourgeoisie of Charleroi, Belgium’s steel-making region, where he started in business in the late 1940s by taking over from his father a small, steel-chain man¬ ufacturing plant. As he traded for steel to make his chains, Frere discovered he had a certain skill as a deal maker. He soon acquired his first steel mill, which was in financial trouble, and turned it around. By 1960, Frere had bought control of a major Charleroi steel works. He soon became a pivotal figure in the Belgian steel industry, owner of a large production facility and an important steel-trading company that were quickly making him a major player in the European industry. By the late 1970s, Frere had created the umbrella company under which most of the Charleroi steel industry was reorganized. Then, in a brilliant coup, Frere sold the entire operation to the Belgian gov¬ ernment at a sizable profit, even as a global steel glut was causing prices to drop. On top of the earnings from the sale, Frere’s steel¬ trading company continued, by the sales agreement, to act as agent for steel sold from the Charleroi region and received a fixed com¬ mission per tonne sold, no matter the selling price."

"ness. Besides the French investors in Paribas, Volvo of Sweden (through its Swiss subsidiary, Volvo Financial) had a stake in Paribas, as did Belgium’s Groupe Frere Bourgeois, headed by industrialist and fin¬ ancier Albert Frere, a man whose history much resembled that of Paul Desmarais."