Authors: Michel Houellebecq
She had come home in the end, he thought, making himself a coffee at the espresso machine; this time, at least. The law firm she worked for numbered Liberation and Le Monde among its clients; one way or another she had started hanging out with a group of journalists, television presenters and politicians. They went out quite a lot, sometimes to strange places — once when he was leafing through one of her books he came across a card for a fetish bar. Jean-Yves suspected that she slept with some guy once in awhile; in any case she and Jean-Yves didn't sleep together any more. Curiously, for his part, he didn't have affairs. Although he was aware he was handsome in a blond, blue-eyed way more common in Americans, he never really felt like taking advantage of the opportunities which might have presented themselves - in any case they were pretty rare: he worked twelve to fourteen hours a day and at his level of seniority you didn't really meet many women. Of course there was Valerie; he had never thought of her other than as a colleague before. It was odd to think of her in this new light; but he knew it was an unimportant daydream: they had been working together for five years now and in situations like that things happened straight away, or they didn't happen at all. He admired Valerie a lot, her astonishing organisational abilities, her infallible memory; without her, he realised, he would never have got to where he was - or at least not as quickly as he had. And today, he might well be about to take a decisive step. He brushed his teeth, shaved carefully, before picking out a rather sober suit. Then he pushed open the door to his daughter's room; she was asleep, blonde like he was, in a pair of pyjamas decorated with chicks.
He walked to the Republique Fitness Club, which opened at seven. He and Audrey lived on the Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple, a rather trendy area which he hated. His meeting at the head office of the Aurore group was not until ten o'clock. Audrey could take care of getting the children dressed and driving them to school for once. He knew that when he got home tonight he would have a half-hour of nagging coming to him; as he walked along the wet pavement among the empty boxes and the vegetable peelings, he realised that he couldn't care less. He realised, also, for the first time with absolute clarity, that his marriage had been a mistake. This kind of realisation, he knew, usually precedes divorce by about two or three years - it's never an easy decision to take.
The big black guy at reception gave him a not very convincing 'How's things, boss?'. He handed him his membership card, nodded and took a towel. When he had met Audrey, he was only twenty-three. Two years later they got married, partly - but only partly - because she was pregnant. She was pretty, stylish, she dressed well -and she could be very sexy when she wanted to. Besides, she had ideas. The emergence of American-style judicial proceedings in France did not seem to her to be a regression, on the contrary, she thought it was progress, towards better protection for citizens and civil liberties. She was capable of expounding fairly lengthily on the subject, she was just back from doing work experience in the United States. In a nutshell, she had conned him. It was strange, he thought, how he had always felt the need to be impressed by women intellectually.
He started off with half-an-hour working through different levels on the Stairmaster, then twenty lengths of the pool. In the sauna, which was deserted at this time of day, he started to relax - and took the opportunity to run through in his mind what he knew about the Aurore group. Novotel-SIEH had been founded in 1966 by Gerard Pelisson and Paul Dubrule - one a graduate of the Ecole Centrale, the other completely self-taught - using capital borrowed entirely from family and friends. In August 1967, the first Novotel opened its doors in Lille. It already included many of the characteristics which were to emerge as the hallmarks of the group: the rooms highly standardised, locations on the outskirts of cities - to be more precise, off the motorway, at the last exit before the city itself, above average standards of comfort for the time — Novotel was one of the first chains routinely to offer en-suite bathrooms. It was an immediate success with business travellers: in 1972, the chain already numbered thirty-five hotels. This was followed in '73 by the creation of Ibis, the takeover of Mercure in '75 and of Sofitel in '81. At the same time, the group prudently diversified into catering, acquiring the Courtepaille chain and the Jacques Borel International group, already well established in the group-catering and self-service restaurant sectors. In 1983, the company changed its name to become the Aurore group. Then, in '85, they created the Formules 1 - the first hotels with absolutely no personnel and one of the greatest successes in the history of the hotel business. Already well established in Africa and the Middle East, the company got a foothold in Asia and set up its own training centre - the Aurore academy. In 1990, the acquisition of Motel 6, comprising 650 locations throughout the United States, made the group the largest in the world; it was followed in '91 by a successful takeover bid for the Wagons Lits group. These acquisitions were costly and in '93, Aurore faced a crisis: the shareholders considered the company's debts to be too high, and the buyout of the Meridien chain fell through. Thanks to the transfer of a number of assets and a recovery plan for Europcar, Lenotre and the Societe des Casinos Lucien Barriere, the situation was turned around by the 1995 financial year. In January '97, Paul Dubrule and Gerard Pelisson resigned the presidency of the group which they ceded to Jean-Luc Espitalier, a graduate of the Ecole Normale a"Administration, whose career was described by the financial magazines as 'atypical'. However they remained members of the supervisory board. The transition went well and, by the end of2000, the group had reinforced its position as world leader, consolidating its lead over Marriott and Hyatt, numbers two and three respectively. Of the ten largest hotel chains in the world, nine were American and one French - the Aurore group.
At nine-thirty, Jean-Yves parked his car in the car park of the group head office at Evry. He walked for a while in the frosty air, to unwind while waiting for the appointed time. At ten o'clock precisely, he was shown into the office of Eric Leguen, executive vice-president for hotels and member of the board of directors. He was forty-five, a graduate of the Ecole Centrale, with a degree from Stanford.
Tall and sturdy, with blond hair and blue eyes, he looked a little like Jean-Yves - though ten years older and with something more confident in his attitude.
'M Espitalier, our president, will meet with you in fifteen minutes,' he began. 'In the meantime, I'll explain why you're here. Two months ago, we bought the Eldorador chain from Jet Tours. It's a little chain of about a dozen beach hotel/holiday clubs spread over the Maghreb, black Africa and the West Indies.' 'It's showing a loss, I believe.'
'No more than the sector as a whole.' He smiled briefly. 'Well, yes, actually, a bit more than the sector as a whole. To be quite frank, the purchase price was reasonable, but it wasn't peanuts; there were a number of other groups in the running: there are still a lot of people in the industry who believe that the sector will pick up again. It's true that, at the moment, Club Med is the only one managing to hold its own; strictly confidentially, we had actually thought of making a takeover bid for Club Med. But the prey was a little too large, the shareholders would never have gone with it. In any case, it wouldn't have been a very friendly thing to do to Philippe Bourguignon, who is a former employee . . .' He gave a rather phony smile, as though he was trying to suggest that this was perhaps -but not definitely — a joke. 'Anyway,' he went on, 'what we are proposing is that you take over the management of all of the Eldorador resorts. Your objective, obviously, being to bring them back quickly to breakeven and then to make them profitable.'
'That's not an easy task.'
'We're very aware of that; we feel that the level of remuneration offered is sufficiently attractive. Not to mention the career prospects within the group, which are huge: we have offices in 142 countries, we employ more than a hundred and thirty thousand people. On top of that, most of our senior executives quickly become shareholders in the group: it's a system we firmly believe in. I've written up some details for you with some sample calculations.'
'I would also need more detailed information on the circumstances of the hotels in the group.'
'Of course; I'll give you a detailed dossier a little later. This is not simply a tactical acquisition; we believe in the potential of the organisation: geographically the resorts are well sited, the general condition excellent — there's very little in the way of improvements to be made. At least, that's my opinion, but I don't have any experience of the leisure sector. We'll be working together, obviously; but you will make the decisions on these matters. If you want to get rid of a hotel or acquire another, the final decision in the matter is yours. That's how we work at Aurore.'
He thought for a moment before going on: 'Of course, it's no accident that you're here. The industry has carefully followed your career at Nouvelles Frontieres; you might even say you have something of a following. You haven't systematically sought to offer the lowest prices, nor the highest level of service; in each case you've matched a price that is acceptable to customers very closely with a certain level of service; that's exactly the philosophy we follow within every chain in the group. And something equally important, you've had a hand in creating a brand with a very strong age; that's something we haven't always been able to at Aurore.'
The telephone on Leguen's desk rang. The conversation was very brief. He got up and led Jean-Yves along the beige-tiled corridor. Jean-Luc Espitalier's office was vast, it must have been at least twenty metres wide; the left-hand side was taken up by a large conference table with some fifteen chairs. As they approached, Espitalier stood and welcomed them with a smile. He was a small man, quite young - certainly no older than forty-five - his hair receding at the front, he looked oddly unobtrusive, almost retiring, as though he was trying to soften the importance of his role with irony. You probably shouldn't count on it, thought Jean-Yves; ENA graduates are often like that, they develop a veneer of humour which turns out to be deceptive. They settled themselves in armchairs around a low table in front of his desk. Espitalier looked at him for a long time with his curious, shy smile before beginning to speak.
'I have a lot of respect for Jacques Maillot,' he said eventually; 'He's built up a first-rate company, very original and with a real ethos. It doesn't happen often. That said - and I don't want to play the prophet of doom here - I think French tour operators need to prepare themselves for a rough ride. Very soon - it's inevitable at this stage, and in my opinion it's only a matter of months — British and German tour operators are going to make inroads into the market. They have two to three times the level of financial backing, and their tours are 20 to 30 per cent cheaper, for a comparable or a better standard of service. Competition will be tough, very tough. To be blunt, there will be casualties. I'm not saying Nouvelles Frontieres will be one of them; it's a group with a strong identity and level-headed shareholders, it can weather this. Nevertheless, the years ahead are going to be tough for everyone.
'At Aurore, we don't have that problem at all,' he went on with a little sigh, 'we are the uncontested world leader in the business hotel sector, which fluctuates very little; but we are still poorly established in the leisure hotel sector, which is more volatile, more sensitive to economic and political fluctuations.'
'As a matter of fact,' interrupted Jean-Yves, 'I was rather surprised by your acquisition. I thought your main development priority was still business hotels, particularly in Asia.'
'That is still our main priority,' replied Espitalier calmly. 'In China alone, for example, there is extraordinary potential in the business hotel sector. We have the experience, we have the know-how: imagine concepts like Ibis and Formule 1 rolled out across the country? That said . . . how should I put this?' He thought for a moment, looked at the ceiling, at the conference table to his right before looking back at Jean-Yves. 'Aurore is a discreet group,' he said at length; 'Paul Dubrule used to say that the sole secret of success in the market was to be timely. Timely means not too early: it's very rare for true innovators to reap the full profits of their innovation - that's the story of Apple and Microsoft. But obviously, it also means not too late. That's where our discretion has served us well. If you do your development work in the shadows, without making waves, by the time your competitors wake up and decide to move on to your patch, it's too late: you have your territory sewn up, you have acquired a crucial competitive advantage. Our reputation has not kept pace with our actual significance; for the most part, this has been done deliberately.
'That time is gone,' he went on with another sigh; 'Everyone now knows that we are number one in the world. At that point it becomes useless - even dangerous - to count on our discretion. It's essential for a group of Aurore's size to have a public image. The business hotel sector is a dependable market, which generates guaranteed regular, substantial, revenues. But it's not, how shall I put it, it's not really fun. People rarely talk about their business trips, there's no pleasure in telling people about them. To build a positive image with the general public there are two possibilities open to us: tour operating or 18-30-style holiday clubs. Becoming a tour operator is further from our core business, but there are a number of very healthy businesses likely to change hands in the near future — we very nearly went down that road. And when Eldorador presented itself, we decided to seize the opportunity.'
'I'm just trying to understand your objectives,' said Jean-Yves. 'Are you more focused on profit or public image?'
'That's a complex issue . . .' Espitalier hesitated, shifting slightly in his chair. 'Aurore's problem is that it has a very weak shareholder base. That, in fact, is what started the rumours of a takeover bid in 1994 - I can tell you now,' he went on with a confident gesture, 'that they were completely unfounded. That would be even more true now: we have no debt whatever, and no international company, even outside the hotel business, is large enough to mount a bid. What remains true is that, unlike Nouvelles Frontieres for example, we do not have a coherent shareholder base. At heart, Paul Dubrule and Gerard Pelisson were less capitalists than they were entrepreneurs - and great entrepreneurs in my opinion, among the greatest the century has produced. But they did not seek to keep a controlling share in their business; it is this which puts us in a delicate position today. You know as well as I do that it is occasionally necessary to sanction prestige spending, something which will improve the strategic position of the group without making a positive impact on revenues in the short term. We also know that it is sometimes necessary to temporarily shore up a loss-making sector because the market hasn't matured or because it is going through a short-term crisis. This is something that the new generation of shareholders finds difficult to accept: the focus on rapid returns on investment has been deeply unconstructive and damaging.'