Féraud, Pierre

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Pierre Féraud

Chairman and director general, Foncière Euris

Nationality: French.

Born: In France.

Career: Foncière Euris, president and director general.

Address: Foncière Euris, 83 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, 75008 Paris, France; http://www.fonciereeuris.fr.

■ Pierre Féraud was director general and head of Foncière Euris, one of the largest and most successful land management companies in France. Foncière Euris, created by and owned by the financier Jean-Charles Naouri, was established in the late 1980s. The company developed shopping centers, primarily in France but also in Poland. The company also owned apartments and houses in Paris and Marseilles and moved goods throughout France. Primarily, however, Foncière Euris made money for its stockholders through the large stakes it owned in the large French retailers Rallye, Casino, Go Sport, and Athlete's Foot, the company's only U.S. holding, which it sold. Foncière Euris also served its stockholders as an agent for the transfer of securities.

Foncière Euris was generally regarded as one of the great success stories of modern French financing. Naouri, a former inspecteur des finances, started Foncière Euris in the late 1980s as a way of managing real estate and financing the building of shopping malls. Within months, however, the institution began to invest in retail firms that sold goods ranging from groceries to running shoes. By the beginning of the 21st century Foncière Euris, functioning as a holding group, owned more than 50 percent of the retail holding company Rallye, which in turn owned approximately 50 percent of the groceries and sundries retail group Casino Guichard-Perrachon and approximately 70 percent of the sporting goods retail group Go Sport. Both groups operated not as single retailers but as managers of a broad variety of boutiques specializing in food and sporting goods.

In the early 21st century Groupe Casino was ranked among the top food management firms in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Its nearly nine thousand stores scattered over 14 countries brought in approximately EUR 23 billion in 2003 net sales alone. Of the nine thousand stores, approximately seven thousand were in France, the other two thousand being located in areas as diverse as Argentina, Mexico, Poland, and Taiwan. Casino also maintained a presence in the U.S. market, where it owned majority stakes in Smart and Final, a warehouse chain that carried catering and restaurant equipment. Many Casino stores in France, where most of the company's European retail outlets were located, functioned as discount and convenience stores under names such as Petit Casino, Vival, and Spar. In France, Casino was ranked first among convenience store operators. Most Casino stores in France, however, operated in formats such as hypermarkets (under the name Géant) and supermarkets. Casino supermarkets operated under a variety of names, including Casino, Franprix, Leader Price, and Monoprix. Casino also worked in food preparation and management, owning and operating more than eight thousand restaurants under the name Casino Cafétéria. Groupe Casino was responsible for more than 90 percent of Rallye's net sales in 2003.

Rallye's second division, Groupe Go Sport, specialized in sporting goods retailing. Unlike Casino, Go Sport had only three major boutique names: Go Sport, Courir, and Movie-sport. By 2003 the group was managing France's second–largest integrated sporting goods retail network. Sales that year alone brought the mother companies approximately EUR 638 million. More than one hundred Go Sport stores—most of them in France but smaller numbers penetrating the Belgian and Polish markets—focused on retailing sporting equipment such as golf clubs, fishing rods, bicycle helmets, tennis rackets, and other goods. Go Sport sold this equipment under its brand names Go Sport and Wannabee and sold equipment by major sporting goods manufacturers. In 2003 Groupe Go Sport included not only the equipment retailer Go Sport but also its sports shoe sales subsidiary Courir and its sports apparel sales subsidiary Moviesport. That same year Rallye divested itself of its American sports shoe retailer Athlete's Foot, selling the branch to the store's management on the grounds that the U.S. shops were losing too much money. In total Groupe Go Sport sales amounted to just over 3 percent of Rallye's total net sales.