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Whoever replaces the diminutive Edelstenne will have big shoes to fill. The executive’s net worth of $3bn stems from a nearly 6% holding in Dassault Systemes, the family’s biggest asset that he cofounded after convincing Marcel to spin off the activity from aircraft maker Dassault Aviation in 1981.
What was a tiny start-up has grown into a €46bn behemoth that is 40% controlled by the family. Edelstenne climbed the corporate ranks over the years and gained the family’s trust, crucially helping to dodge the threat of nationalisation of Dassault Aviation in the 1980s under late Socialist president François Mitterrand and restructuring attempts by president Jacques Chirac in the mid-1990s.
The decision about who will replace him will be made by the holding company’s supervisory board, which comprises Serge’s surviving children Laurent, 69, Thierry, 65, Marie-Helene, 57, and Olivier’s eldest, Helena, an actress who took her father’s seat just weeks after he died.
Written into Serge Dassault’s succession plan is a five-member “committee of wise people” to advise the heirs. It includes former French budget minister Alain Lambert and prominent former CEOs.
The shadow of past acrimony within the family looms large over the choice. Olivier’s appointment to the family holding spot fuelled an intense rivalry with brother Laurent, which erupted into the public arena.
In a 2016 interview, Laurent said his father worried about succession. He also acknowledged his own ambitions and singled out Olivier for not abiding by the same “consensus on a future” as the three other siblings.
“I’m number two. That means I have an impossible position,” he said. “I’m going to do what it takes so that the position becomes possible.”
In a bid to ward off future clashes, Serge’s succession plan elevated Edelstenne and stipulated that the holding company’s supervisory board would have four members — his children or, in their absence, a spouse or descendant — with one serving as president. In practice the position has rotated, but this is not in the statutes and leaves room for discord.
In 2021, Marie-Helene took over from Thierry in a move that was at one point contested by Laurent.
Top contenders
For now, the top contenders to succeed Edelstenne are two long-standing executives and proteges: Bernard Charlès, 65, head of Dassault Systemes, and Eric Trappier, 62, who sits at the top of Dassault Aviation.
“A CEO of one of the owned public companies, Dassault Systemes or Dassault Aviation, would be known to investors and therefore could be viewed as more of the status quo,” said Bloomberg Intelligence senior analyst Eileen Segall.
The relatively low-profile Charlès joined Dassault Systemes 40 years ago, succeeding Edelstenne as CEO in 1995 and as chairman at the start of this year. A record $5.7bn acquisition in 2019 facilitated expansion into new areas such as modelling Covid-19 variants and running clinical trials. Charlès is the second-highest-paid CEO of France’s benchmark CAC-40.
“Our journey together has been an incredibly enjoyable time,” Edelstenne said in a statement about Charlès on Monday. “I fully trust him to successfully oversee the future development of the company.”
Trappier took over from Edelstenne as head of Dassault Aviation a decade ago and in recent years has overseen a winning streak of Rafale fighter jet export contracts to places such as Egypt, India and the United Arab Emirates. The aeroplane entered service in the French military in 2004 but the first international sales were only signed in 2015. Trappier considerably raised his public profile in 2022 amid a bitter dispute with Airbus about supremacy over Europe’s future military jet.
On Monday, he said in a radio interview that Dassault Aviation and France have successfully gained the upper hand in the project. Last year was a record year for the company, he said, pointing to orders for the Rafale and Falcon jets.
“Some say both are contenders, but this hasn’t been affirmed or confirmed; nothing is decided,” Monassier said. “Both men are very busy in their respective jobs. It could be one of them or someone else.”
Bloomberg News. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
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