Thierry Desmarest, the former CEO of Total, has died at the age of 78

Former Total boss Thierry Desmarest, who chaired the oil company from 1995 to 2010 then interim in 2014 upon the death of Christophe de Margerie, died on Wednesday at the age of 78, the TotalEnergies group said, confirming information from World.

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During the twelve years he was CEO of the oil group, between 1995 and 2007, he left the image of a remarkable corporate strategist, but also that of a poor communicator. And that matters in a world where the image – of managers and companies alike – is scrutinized with increasing insistence.

Hostile takeover offer on Elf

On the strategist side, Thierry Desmarest carried out two major acquisitions as boss of Total. The first was carried out in 1999. After a few months of negotiations with the Belgian financier Albert Frère, who was the main shareholder, Total proposed a friendly public exchange offer for Fina, the former Belgian Petroleum Financial Company. A takeover under the nose of what was then the largest French oil company: Elf.

Thierry Desmarest, however, is not going to stop at Fina, which is already allowing Total to change dimension. Barely two days after the effective merger between the two groups, the CEO simply launched a hostile public offer for… Elf. For many years, rumors of a rapprochement between the two groups were legion. But always in the opposite direction. But the boss of Total does not lack ambition. Despite Elf’s larger size. Despite the golden share of the French State, which prevents, in theory, a hostile offer. Despite Elf’s counteroffer. And Thierry Desmarets’ audacity paid off. After a few weeks of battle, Total succeeded in taking control of its great rival for 345 billion francs. The oil group, now TotalElf, enters the category of oil majors on a global scale.

Thierry Desmarest is then at the top. He won’t stay that way for long. On December 12, 1999, the tanker Erika, chartered by Total, sank off the coast of Brittany. The 30,884 tonnes of heavy fuel oil will pollute 400 kilometers of French coastline. For weeks, images of volunteers cleaning the dirty beaches, recovering the bodies of birds turned black by the oil by the tens of thousands, flashed on television. Thierry Desmarets does not realize the extent of the tragedy. And the impact on the group’s image. It takes him ten days to get there, and refuses to admit the company’s responsibility. He comes across as a cold, distant and uncaring bureaucrat. The oil group will take many years to restore its image. This rehabilitation will be all the more difficult as another tragedy will mark him. On September 21, 2001, less than two years after the sinking of the Erika, the AZF fertilizer manufacturing plant, belonging to the chemical subsidiary of the oil group, exploded. The group reacted much more quickly this time, setting up a crisis unit and affirming its desire to investigate the causes of the accident. But the scale of the tragedy, which left 31 dead and around 2,500 injured, and the difficulty in precisely establishing this origin, will, once again, damage the image of the company and its manager.

Before these significant events, Thierry Desmarets had ticked all the boxes for success as a figure of the Parisian bourgeoisie. Born in Paris on December 18, 1945, son of a magistrate at the Court of Auditors, he studied at the Jeanson-de-Sailly high school, before joining Polytechnique, then the Ecole des Mines. However, he began his career far from France, since he exercised his talents in the management of the mines of New Caledonia for four years, between 1971 and 1975. It was then the ministerial cabinets, first in industry , alongside Michel d’Ornano, then in economics, with René Monory. With the change of political majority, he turned towards the business world in 1981. And it’s already Total. He quickly climbed the ranks within the Exploration-Production activity. He became general director of this branch, the noblest and the one destined for the highest positions, in 1989. When the CEO of Total, Serge Tchuruk, decided to exercise his talents at Alcatel-Alsthom, in 1995, Thierry Desmarets took , logically, the reins of the company. He transformed it into an oil major, before handing over general management to Christophe de Margerie in 2007, retaining the position of honorary president. The death of the latter, in October 2014, will bring the former boss back to the forefront. The board of directors decides to split the functions of president, a position he will occupy, and general management, entrusted to Patrick Pouyanné. In December 2015, the latter combined the two functions again, Thierry Desmarest once again becoming an administrator of the oil giant. He had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for around ten years, according to The world. He was married and the father of three children.