Artémis

"With François Pinault, the problem will not arise in the same terms since the French billionaire does not exist in the luxury industry. It is Joseph Perrella, former head of Wasserstein-Perrella bank, who first thinks of him and calls him from New York on February 23. As part of a European tour of potential white knights, Perrella arranges a meeting in early March at the Artémis headquarters on Boulevard de La Tour-Maubourg. Pinault asks Patricia Barbizet, CEO of his personal holding company, to attend the meeting. On these big occasions, the Breton boss relies on his intuition. He needs to feel Patricia's reactions, who he will later appoint as the chair of the supervisory board of PPR, because she is an intelligent, simple, and intuitive woman with a natural propensity to simplify problems rather than complicate them."

"The sale of Saint Laurent to Gucci will prove to be much more complicated than expected. To finalize the deal, François Pinault will have to separate Saint Laurent (ready-to-wear and accessories), sold to Gucci, from Saint Laurent Couture, which will be bought by his personal holding company, Artémis. The prestigious haute couture house will remain under the control of Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé. After paying them 78 million euros to acquire all the rights to the brand, he guarantees them millions of euros in royalties on Saint Laurent perfume sales until... 2016! In addition, François Pinault commits to financing the deficits of the couture house until 2006, which amounts to 36.6 million euros in six payments, until 2006. This is how Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé will have sold their name for the second time: already, in 1993, when Saint Laurent was bought by Sanofi, they had received 300 million francs as compensation for renouncing their status as a limited partnership company. Finally, Pinault will close the door on the famous but expensive fashion house."