Fundraising
Tapie, whom WealthBriefing met in Geneva a few weeks ago, explains that fundraising will help to start production of clients’ cars this summer, and produce at least one “pre-series” car being created by partnering distributors to be displayed in several of the Delage showrooms.

As part of the process, Private Trust Partners is helping to issue a €5 million convertible bond, requiring a minimum subscription of €125,000, paying an 8 per cent coupon and carrying a four-year maturity. The bond will be issued on 31 March, maturing on 30 March 2027. Trustconsult Luxembourg SA is the central administrator; the bank and paying agent on the transaction is Reyl, the Swiss bank.

Tapie, who is Delage’s CEO, is joined on the Delage management board by big hitters in commerce and engineering such as Benoit Bagur, chief technical officer (he was chief engineer for Seat, winning a double FIA World Touring Car Championship and was a designer for VWAG, Ligier and EXAGON); Francois Pinault, the billionaire and founder of luxury group Kering, one of the most renowned European businessmen; and Xavier Niel, the French billionaire, founder of Iliad mobile, owner of Monaco Telecom and co-owner of Le Monde.

Tapie’s story
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a man whose father was a flamboyant businessman, politician and president of Olympique de Marseille, the football club, Laurent Tapie loves entrepreneurial adventure and sport. With an engineering and science bent, he’s also fascinated by the challenges of energy, and told WealthBriefing that existing energy solutions, for electric vehicles for example, have suffered from drawbacks. He wants Delage to be part of how the conversation moves on.

Tapie started out in the business consulting world with McKinsey, and soon moved into hands-on experience, moving into the dotcom world of startups in the 1990s, built a football site, and then moved back into consulting when the bubble burst at the end of the 1990s. He later created a sport betting site, combining his love of maths and trading to achieve success. And now this self-confessed “petrol-head” is restarting Delage. 

The marketing blurb on the convertible bond offering doesn’t hold back, noting that more than €10 million worth of car reservations signed with down payments have been received; there are several distributor agreements signed in countries such as France and the US, with a number under discussion in Switzerland, the UAE, Canada and Mexico.

In its first “life,” Delage won and competed in a host of Grand Prix races and equivalent contests in France and around the world. 

What’s clear is that under a hyper-competitive Laurent Tapie, the “hypercar” market is going to be full of thrills and spills for some time to come.