France: I Wasn't Created to Lose Money

"At the beginning of the century," says Sylvain Floirat, 67, in the rolling accent of France's Périgord region, "when you founded a business, it was supposed to last at least two generations. Nowadays it's only a matter of a few years." Floirat has taken advantage of the change: buying and selling businesses ("Anybody can buy; knowing when to sell is another story"), he now owns 94 companies and a personal fortune of at least $100 million. And they know him at the bank. "There are only three of us on the Champs Elysées," Floirat says expansively, "who can sign a check at a minute's notice for $2,000,000. Dassault, the airplane maker, the Rothschilds—and me."

Color & Cars. Floirat lists among his businesses:

> Compagnie Française de Télévision, whose SECAM color-television system is battling Germany's PAL for eminence in Europe (TIME, Aug. 12), and begins color telecasting this fall in France and the Soviet Union. Compagnie Française also manufactures sets, and Floirat expects to sell 500,000 before 1969, after that 500,000 annually.

> Europe I, a 1,000-kw. radio station known for news breaks and objective reporting. Easily the most popular commercial station in France, it returned $3,200,000 in profits last year.

> Bréguet Aircraft, second largest French planemaker after Dassault. Floirat is under Gaullist pressure to sell Bréguet to Dassault, and will soon do so. "If I had enough money," he grumbles, "I'd buy out Dassault."

> Engins Matra, a missile company that recently won the $25 million, nine-nation ESRO (for European Space Research Organization) contract to build a Continental satellite. Besides its space activities, Matra has organized an auto subsidiary that will race cars at Le Mans this year; is already producing a commercial sports model that drew raves at the last Geneva Auto Show.

"We Don't Want to Know." Floirat's holdings also include a record company, a hotel chain and a Parisian magazine called Lui, which is patterned after Playboy. But no one has yet totaled up the empire's assets. "We don't want to know overall figures," says Floirat's son-in-law and principal aide, Roger Créange. "They would make us dizzy, and we might want to stop expanding."

Despite his wealth, Floirat lives simply. He and wife Julia maintain a modest Montmartre apartment with a view of Sacré Coeur. Floirat owns a Rolls-Royce, but prefers a Citroën. He summers in the Périgord, where he grows apples and walnuts experimentally to establish new money crops. Floirat has also helped to revive the dying truffle industry. Natives insisted that a virus had wiped out truffles; Floirat proved that they would reflourish if the oak groves where they grew were thinned and the soil cultivated. Soon to be honored by the Périgourdins for this achievement, Floirat is unmoved by his new distinction. Says he: "Missiles or truffles, the main thing is to go about it scientifically. I wasn't created to lose money."