Serge Dassault Kept Family Firm Flying High but Ran Afoul of the Law

The Wall Street Journal ^ | June 1, 2018 | James R. Hagerty

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Serge Dassault had to fight for a role in Groupe Dassault, a French maker of military and corporate jets founded by his father, Marcel Dassault. The father wasn’t impressed with the son’s academic record in engineering and at first gave him only peripheral roles in management.

“When I joined the company, I could tell it annoyed him,” the younger Mr. Dassault once told a French magazine.

“There wasn’t room for two,” his mother, Madeleine Dassault, said.

Serge Dassault finally became CEO of the group in 1986, at age 61, when his father died. The younger Mr. Dassault maintained family control of a company of strategic importance to France, producing Mirage and Rafale jet fighters, as well as Falcon business jets. The company also expanded its global presence in computer-aided design and other software, and diversified in such areas as wine production and art auctions. Mr. Dassault bought Le Figaro, the country’s leading conservative newspaper.

His reputation suffered in his later years when he was prosecuted for tax fraud, vote buying in local French elections and bribery related to aircraft sales in Belgium.

Mr. Dassault died May 28, apparently of a heart attack, at his office on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. He was 93.

Forbes estimated Mr. Dassault’s net worth at $26.1 billion, ranking him as the world’s 30th richest person. He enjoyed hunting deer, sometimes chasing them down in an off-road vehicle, mounted with a gun turret, on his property. For his 75th birthday party, colleagues brought in an impersonator of the rumpled detective from the TV series “Columbo,” a favorite of Mr. Dassault.

He had little time for society dinners, music or movies. He worked long hours and insisted that six hours of sleep was enough. His morning routine included a dose of ginseng,

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Reuters

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Died on the job, with his boots on, so to speak.

That is a rarity these days.

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SolidWorks

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Mirage jets and SolidWords 3D mega software. What a massive organization.

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Dassault is Jewish. I am always in awe with the Jews’ intelligence.

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They have high standards. The school he came out of , SupAero, is extremely difficult to get in and finish, yet his father was still unimpressed lol. It is like Bach unsatisfied of students until finds it encouraging when meeting Mozart as a student. His son was not the outright genius match he was seeking I guess