La Grande Récré, Gap France, Legal cafes are other consumer brands associated with the Girondin name through its investment company, Financière immobilière bordelaise, and its subsidiary Hermione People and Brands (HPB).
A fortune of 1.1 billion euros
Arriving in Gironde as a child from Casablanca, the son of fabric merchants, Michel Ohayon made his mark in real estate and luxury hotels. In Bordeaux, where he first opened a clothing store in the 1980s and then invested in commercial premises, in 1999 he became the owner of the Grand Hôtel, an emblematic place in the Gironde capital, which he renovated before reopening in 2007. His first spoils of war, seized from a large local family. Director of the palace until 2010, Nathalie Seiler-Hayez sees in it “an additional stone” brought to the influence of the city. “It was extremely visionary on his part”: she is full of praise for Michel Ohayon – like all those who agree to talk regarding him.
In 2005, the person concerned made a sensational entry into the Top 500 of the greatest fortunes in France, with a fortune estimated at the time at 350 million euros. He pointed in July at the 104e place in the ranking of the magazine “Challenges”, with 1.1 billion euros. Also buyer of the Trianon Palace in Versailles in 2014 or the Sheraton in Roissy in 2016, Michel Ohayon was not confined to hotels. In the 2000s, he tried to enter the capital of the Partouche casino group, later of the “Nice Matin” newspaper. He became interested in ecotourism with the purchase of a castle in Saint-Émilion or with his conversion project of the Libourne barracks.
“He’s someone who talks a lot but there’s not much behind it”, tackles a union delegate
Presented at the beginning of the year, this project includes a commercial component, with shops dedicated to luxury and antiques, wine and flavors, but also a top-of-the-range hotel offer, with in particular a five-star hotel installed in a former barracks. . The project also includes an auditorium, a museum center, a space dedicated to the automobile through the prism of contemporary art, a leisure center, an educational space and two restaurants…
The end of the 2010s marked his appetite for the distribution sector. In 2018, he acquired around twenty Galeries Lafayette stores in the regions, before chaining the takeovers of companies at the helm of the court – Camaïeu, Gap, Go Sport – and entering the capital of the toy brand La Grande. Recess. “We very quickly agreed that he would come to support”, recalls the CEO, Jean-Michel Grunberg, who sees in Michel Ohayon “someone who reasons and decides faster than others in these professions where there is always a risk”. He “still believes that physical commerce has a certain future”, provided that the stores “are attractive centers”, abounds his long-time lawyer, Olivier Pardo.
” Too Gourmand “
In 2019, Michel Ohayon defends, in a rare interview granted to the magazine “Forbes”, the figure of the entrepreneur who “has never been admired, nor praised” in France, according to him, and who “now crystallizes many passions , tenseness”. This fall, the judicial liquidation of Camaïeu earned him, in fact, the anger of the employees. “He is someone who talks a lot but there is not much behind it”, tackle Thierry Siwik, CGT union representative, for whom “there was no real management of Camaïeu”. Referring to his successive buyouts, he believes that Michel Ohayon “was too greedy”.