Edouard Stern

Edouard Stern was born on October 18th, 1954 with Paris (France) and died assassinated on February 28th, 2005, with Geneva (Suisse). Edouard Stern was, in the years 1990, a figure for the French Finance. It was however little known general public. They are the circumstances of its death and their echo in the media which made of him a public figure. Its body was found equipped with a Latex combination and sifted of four balls probably drawn by its mistress, Cécile Brossard. The instruction is still in hand and the business will be judged only in the current of the year 2007. Beyond the macabre and sordid aspects of the fact various, the media were interested, particularly in France, with the romantic and tragic dimension of the character of Stern. Many articles, books and Web pages were published since its death.

Biography

Overflight

The French financier Edouard Stern belonged to the gotha of national and, to a lesser extent, international finance. Edouard Stern was born on October 18th, 1954, with Paris, Antoine Jean Elie Stern, descendant of a line of bankers founded at the 19th century with Frankfurt and Christiane Laroche, ex-wife of Jean-Claude Servan-Schreiber. Graduate of ESSEC, it launches out very early (at 22 years) in the businesses. He will be initially administrator of the family bank, then leader of this one and finally will resell it for a sum which will carry the inheritance of its family to the row of 38e French fortune. He becomes, in 1992, associate-manager of the Banque Lazard which he leaves in 1997 to devote itself to the management of a Fonds of investment: Investment Real Returns .

In 1983, Edouard Stern marries Béatrice David-Weil, the oldest daughter of Michel David-Weil, president of the Banque Lazard. It will have, with it, three children. Divorced in 1998, it will have various connections in particular with Cécile Brossard, her supposed loophole. Edouard Stern was buried with the Cimetière Jew of Veyrier, close to Geneva, according to her last wills.

Trajectory of Edouard Stern

The life of Edouard Stern seems to be able to be divided into four great periods: childhood, the rise, the apogee and finally the fall.

Childhood

Many testimonys (sources??) depict an Edouard Stern child very cherished by a beautiful and protective mother. One (who??) known as adorable and early but timid and yet the already turbulent one. Growing in the world felted of the VII {{E}} Parisian district, it changes school on several occasions, prefers the company of the adults to that of the comrades of his age and appears to incarnate, with many regards, the stereotype of the " poor little rich boy".

Teenager, it flirte with the revolt: studio in a tower of the XIII {{E}} " to escape the small parisien" medium; , first abandoned year with Sciences Po in the course of road, adventures in Asia with motor bike, friendship with one of the founders of LCR, etc This " rébellion" nourishes itself with the best sources. He attends indeed, at that time, a " old man professeur". Lastly, it integrates ESSEC and is seriously worried to start its rise.

Rise

Edouard Stern initiates himself with the trades of finance while entering, before even the end of her studies to ESSEC, in the family firm. In 1979, several members of its family come to ask him to take the control of the family bank which, directed by his/her father is close to the bankruptcy. Stern and its father will not address any more the word during nearly fifteen years but will reconcile themselves little before the death of Antoine Stern.

During decade 80, it rectifies the Banque Stern, develops its activity in the finance of markets and fusion-acquisitions. It multiplies the raids: attempt on the general Company of water for the account of Saint-Gobain, support with Claude Bébéar to take the control of the Company of the South. In 1985, it resells the bank with Libanais investors. This event will be the starting point of its reputation of financier except par, which one sometimes summarizes by saying that he is the only man who ever managed to sell the same bank twice. Behind this concise formula a clause of the contract of transfer of 1985 is hiding place, which enables him to preserve the property of its patronym. At once the buckled transaction, it recreates a new structure, with the name close to old, the similar activity and to which it brings many of its former customers. It sells this second business in 1988, with the Société from Swiss banks (absorptive itself since as a whole UBS) for a price estimated at 1,75 billion French francs. At this point in time the family fortune of Stern reaches the 38e row of the national classification.

Many the operations which it carries out during this period are attacks as one starts to practice them at that time. This type of operations known as " hostiles" became currency but they were not it at the time, in France where many companies of the financial sector were nationalized. In this context, Edouard Stern initially caused the scandal and fear, then admiration, of the hexagonal financial world. It contributed to introduce there practices which enabled him to rise on the level of the worldwide market, but also made it harder and relentless. “It made waves in Paris while launching raids on companies, breaking the implicit rules of capitalism cosy to the Frenchwoman”. By doing this, it naturally caused some resentments.

The speed and the glare of this success except standards are without any doubt mainly to put at the account personal genius and qualities of discipline and intuition of Edouard Stern. But they are also the reward of the exceptional capacity to be surrounded of which made to watch the young financier. Claude Pierre-Brossolette then Jean Peyrelevade and Philippe Jaffré will belong to these some great personalities of the business world which will be initially the mentors of Edouard Stern, then its collaborator close relations, and will remain in regular relations with him until the end. Other personalities, like Alain Minc or Lindsay Owen-Jones, without to have been never his/her direct collaborators, are included in the category of the mentors and the relations close tied in this time to rise.

Apogee

Its marriage in 1983 with one of the heiresses of the clan founder of the bank Lazard was as the sign of its acceptance, which went, to some extent, of oneself because of its own ascent, by the network of families which still at that time controlled the sector of the bank of businesses in France. But its nomination as a associate-manager of Lazard in 1992 is much more than that. It is the sign of its recognition as a financier of foreground by the whole of the professionals of the sector, well beyond its medium of origin. In 1992, Edouard Stern is not any more the promising young man whose some patriarchs noticed the talent. It is one of the rising figures of French finance; an actor whom one expects to see soon playing the very first roles. While entering to Lazard, it crosses another rising star of then besides: Jean-Marie Messier. This drive out-crossed is not a chance but a case of application of the saying " A nail drives out the autre". Starting from 1994, the heir apparent to Michel David-Weil with the head of the worthy house is not any more Jean-Marie Messier but from now on Edouard Stern.

During five years, until in 1997, Edouard Stern will seem the hope and the engine of the development of the house Lazard. In 1996, the magazine the Expansion, in an article devoted to in the future of the bank, brings back the remarks below:

“It clearly became the engine of the house”, loose with philosophy one of the associated managers of the old guard. “It is obvious that it is exceptionally gifted, inventive, and that it represents one more”, still confirms another associate. Nothing any more decides without its downstream.

However, it is as at that time as start to circulate much of short phrases and anecdotes insisting on its haughty character, breakable and impatient. The conflict which opposes it to Jean-Marie Messier, and which shows the departure of this last, could pass for the confrontation " normal" of two ambitious personalities between which the statute of dolphin could not be divided. However, the echoes of this tournament did not do anything to improve the reputation of brutality which stuck already in the name of Stern. More serious are the more or less buckled anecdotes and complaints which emanate then from various sources within the bank Lazard and tend to depict Stern like a man taken of frenzy and almost seeking the occasions to enter in conflict with the most various people. It is found " pressé". One generally puts on his account the departure of certain personalities which, like Felix Rohatyn, leave Lazard at that time.

In 1997, the cut is full and Michel David-Weil is obliged to demolish that which the press calls then " the son-in-law incontrôlable". Some have advanced the assumption that it is the entry at Lazard of Anne Lauvergeon, old Sherpa of François Mitterrand, which crystallized the opposition between Edouard Stern and his father-in-law but it is more probable than this rupture is the conclusion of a long succession of clashes and disagreements. It is, of the remainder, which seems to summarize celebrates it formula of Michel David-Weil: " I treated it like my son, It treated me like his père" , which dies in four months of the continuations of a syndrome of the shaken baby. During the survey carried out by the parquet floor of Paris, the suspicions go initially on the mother, then on a Bulgarian baby-sitter, missing shortly after the death. This business remains surrounded by much mystery.

This business, by its rocambolesque side and its bonds with the world of the ex-block of the East, at that time evokes another aspect of the life of Edouard Stern, but in the professional field this time: the bonds which it weaves with the Général Lebed and its entourage of business men. Le Figaro pays. Most important of these structures is Investment Real Returns or IRR, a speculative Fonds dedicated to acquisitions of a holding in great groups dimensioned for operations of fusions or reorganizations. Via IRR, Edouard Stern enters to the capital of the chemist Rhodia, is used as intermediary in the takeover of CCF by HSBC. It also invests in the Genevese real estate. He advises also the New Yorkean banker Edmond Safra were made about it: it would have been " Call-girl occasionnelle" or " Dominating Sadomasochistic, under the pseudonym of “Mistress Alice” ". The relation between the two lovers tumultuous, is crossed moments of exaltation and happiness but also of sets of cruel to and from. The taste of the Art seems to play a big role there, since bronzes " fortements érotisés" what carves Cécile, to the table of Chagall that Stern would have charged it with buying on its behalf and who seems to have been the pretext, or the instrument, of particularly severe tearings in the days having preceded death by Stern.

The Murder and the Investigation

See also: Murder of Edouard Stern

Edouard Stern was killed in her Genevese residence of four balls, including two with the head, on February 28th, 2005. The body was found the following day by the personnel of house extended on his bed and covered with a combination in Latex of the type of those used by the amateurs of erotic plays sadomasochistic. The survey carried out by the Swiss judge Michel-Alexandre Graber immediately turned its attention towards Cécile Brossard, which acknowledged a few days to later be the author of the shots. It is, since, in Preventive detention with the prison of Field-Dollon and its lawsuit should take place in the current of the year 2007. Other possible tracks were evoked, like those of Russian connections of Stern or that of " the other femme" , Julia Lemigova. Nothing concrete left there for the moment and the assumption a " crime passionnel" whose author would be Cécile Brossard remains, by far, most probable.

The parts of the files made public at the end of spring 2005 highlight the terribly destroying and unhealthy character of the relation between Edouard Stern and Cécile Brossard in the few months having preceded the murder. As example, let us quote the following passage, published in Le Figaro and treating E-mail S and SMS exchanged by the two lovers:

“I cannot speak you, I am not alone but the horrors that you say to me destroy me”, can one thus read in a message addressed by Cécile Brossard. Referring to the relation tied by Edouard Stern with two other women, she adds: “I hope at least that you find some pleasure in the evil that you make me. ” Or: “It is you who desired ace that it is finished between us with all the insults that you have to me make this morning. ” The wire of notes of the Diary which it holds on a laptop, it also ensures to be intended to say by the banker: “My poor daughter, if you believe that I will give you my name…”

On its side, Edouard Stern would have said for submission to her mistress: “I hope that you sleep a little. How did one arrive from there there? One day, I would like to speak you about what occurred (...) I do not reject on you the responsibility for our failure.” A little further, it deplores the impatience which Cécile Brossard posts obviously: “With the first cloud, it is silence, the refusal to face reality. I am afraid that you sharp in a virtual world where you see people, including me, as you imagine them rather than as they are.”

For the lawyer of the civil left (the family of Edouard Stern), the responsibility for this relation of terror is mainly to put at the account Cécile Brossard and the friends of Stern, tend to reproach the media for missing respect with its memory and for representing it as if he were the culprit and not the victim. More recently, the book of two Swiss journalists, Valerie Duby and Alain Jourdan (c.f. heading Bibliography below), caused critical sharp, and was almost interdict with the publication. After a first decision going in this direction, the Swiss courts finally rejected the complaint and the book could appear in September 2006.

Business Rhodia
Bank Lazard

External bonds

8344 - Edouard Stern, article applying the grid of analysis developed by Rene Girard in romantic Lie and romantic truth to the case of Edouard Stern.
Dossier Edouard Stern on the site of the Swiss daily newspaper Tribune de Genève
Dossier Edouard Stern on the site of the Swiss daily newspaper Time
Dossier Edouard Stern on the site of the magazine the Express train
Inventaire Presses on Oscoop.com
edouardstern.com

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