Pierre Donnersberg, favorite of the CAC 40
By Marie Bordet
Published on 08/12/2023 at 16h55
The President of Diot-Siaci, whose clients include major French groups such as L’Oréal, Air France and Alstom, is now at the helm of Europe’s leading brokerage business.
Oh, how magical Cannes is... Catherine Deneuve, looking majestic, followed by Johnny Depp, Michael Douglas, Uma Thurman and Pierre Richard, brought their presence to the opening ceremony of the 76th edition of the festival, on May 16. As this glittering parade of stars got underway, a rather more normal-looking man, with grey hair and black glasses, made a quiet appearance on the red carpet alongside his wife. The cameras gave him a quick glance before moving on, snubbing all attention as he ascended the mythical 24 steps of the Palais des Festivals.
Him? no idea... Next! However, this dashing septuagenarian is a key figure in this major spring barnum. Iris Knobloch, the new president of the festival, gives us the proof: “Oh, Pierre... I adore him... I run into him regularly during the fortnight, enjoying lunch on the beach at the Carlton, strolling along the Boulevard de la Croisette, and every evening, he’s there for the 7 p.m. screening. The most assiduous man, Pierre Donnersberg is a one-man institution!” Despite this statement, the mystery remains. Pierre Donnersberg’s business card sheds little light on the credible reason for his omnipresence in Cannes. In his private life, Pierre Donnersberg is president of Diot-Siaci. Doesn’t ring a bell? Nothing unusual, Diot-Siaci is an insurance and brokerage company... Admittedly, it’s a small empire in the sector, but its austere, anonymous functionality seems rather detached from the glamorous limelight of the 7th art. “The answer is quite simple,” he replies. “I’m the broker for a number of film producers, and above all the long-standing broker for the Cannes Film Festival! The organization is insured against all conceivable catastrophes: theft, fire, flood, terrorist attack...” An important but discreet figure in the global film industry, Pierre Donnersberg is equally influential in the world of French capitalism...
Indeed. Pierre Donnersberg, the star broker on the Paris stock exchange (5 000 employees, sales of €794 million) is a force to be reckoned with, who boasts a strong contingent of CAC 40 CEOs. “There isn’t one major French company we don’t cooperate with,” asserts Donnersberg, in his deep but warm voice. While it is easy to understand the role of a broker to individuals (for example, identifying the bank that offers the most competitive mortgage), we understand less about its role to multinationals... it’s the same principle: the broker helps companies design the best insurance contract for their specific needs: insure the tens of thousands of expats employed at the cosmetics group L’Oréal, the ports and containers of the CMA-CGM Group, the flight crews of Air France, the tramways and metros of Alstom, the nuclear waste reprocessing plant of La Hague, the automobile factories of Stellantis, the latest jewelry collection of Tiffany, etc. Or even the extraordinary projects of incredible complexity, such as the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris, the construction of the Paris-Bordeaux high-speed line (LGV) by Vinci, or the TotalEnergies tower (242 m, 50 levels) at La Défense... Pierre Donnerberg’s top client is always Vincent Bolloré. “Multinationals tend to work with several brokers,” explains the president of Diot-Siaci. “The Bolloré Group has one broker to cover all its businesses: that is us! Vincent entrusted me with this enormous task, cautioning me: trust is a one-shot deal. I give you everything, but don’t mess up... It’s been going on for years!”
Magician. From time to time, Pierre Donnersberg devotes himself to more specific missions. He was like a magician to candidate Macron during the presidential election of 2017. Insurers were notably absent, fearing that the political novice might fail to reach the necessary 5% of votes for a reimbursement of campaign expenses. Donnersberg, promoted to the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honour a year earlier by the then Minister of the Economy, takes personal charge of the file. A few weeks later, the future President of the Republic signs his insurance policy for the 8 million euros involved. “You have got to pay a visit to Pierre and find out about the dinners he organizes... Otherwise, you will never really understand this man.” Such advice was delivered to us, in a commanding tone, by a regular guest at the aforementioned feasts. With little insistence, we were given a tour of his apartment-museum in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. An exceptional place not only in terms of its immense size but especially due to its psychedelic decor. Artworks created by contemporary Chinese surrealist painters, unique furnishings and 18th-century art objects, Greek statues, stuffed wild animals... It’s like an insane Ali Baba’s cave of the arts. “The place not only stands for Pierre’s incredibly financial success, but also reflects his eclectic tastes,” says Stéphane Fouks, vice-president of Havas, to which Donnersberg is a client. “He talks about his fierce independence and absolute originality. All Paris flocks to this incredible place to laugh at Pierre’s jokes and savor the delicious Moroccan couscous prepared by Rachida, his cook.”
“One of his kind”. Our host has an impressive network. Without surprises, as in his Parisian home, everything is intermingled and superimposed: family, friends, business relations. At his table, top engineers toast with artists, the religious philosophize with master chefs, and philosophers gossip with politicians. To name just a few: Dominique Senequier, president of Ardian, Thomas Buberl, CEO of Axa, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, former president of Medef, plastic artist Bernar Venet, singer Gérard Lenorman (“I saved him from an insurance scam in the 1970s and we became buddies”), actor Patrick Timsit, director Alexandre Arcady, Chief Rabbi Haïm Korsia (a cousin in-law), former ministers Bernard Kouchner and Jean-Marie Le Guen, former Ferrari director Jean Todt, chef Yannick Alléno, philosopher Luc Ferry... As father of three, Donnersberg recently hosted former French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe to discuss his project for a Chinese contemporary art foundation. “Pierre is special, one of his kind,” says his friend Michel Cicurel, former Chairman of the Rothschild Financial Company. “He even didn’t get middle school qualifications... Normally, there isn’t much space for guys like him who play unconventionally, but he surely found his own.”
Glibness. Quite proud of his career, Pierre Donnersberg enjoys handing out his biography written by journalist Jacques de Baudus (You know what I mean, Fastigium Editions). “I’ve heard him tell his story 8000 times, but I’ll never get tired of it!” jokes Jacques Aschenbroich, Chairman of Orange’s Board of Directors. “His life is totally incredible,” adds Thomas Buberl. Xavier Huillard, CEO of Vinci, goes even further: “Pierre is the protagonist of a novel.”
Rewind a bit. Pierre Donnersberg, the only son of his father, who ran a wine and citrus transport company, and his mother, a housewife, was born in Oran, French Algeria, in August 1947. It was an idyllic childhood for Pierre surrounded by two loving parents. However, the happy tale ended abruptly when his father died of a heart attack during the Algerian war. In February 1962, 15-year-old Pierre set off for France accompanied by his mother, with a suitcase and his father’s coffin in the hold. Disoriented, he repeated his ninth year for a third time. The underachiever, residing in a public housing project in Épinay-sur-Seine, never managed to get his high school diploma. Working at a series of odd jobs, at the age of 21, he happened to notice an advertisement for a door-to-door insurance salesman. He applied. With his gift of gab, his smile and his Mediterranean accent, Pierre Donnersberg quickly exceeded all expectations. When on vacation at Club Med, he offset his trips by “selling insurance policies to guys he meets on the beach, during sports, or at dinners.” Not long after, his commissions made him earn more than his boss! “Still, for a long time I was plagued by an inferiority complex. There are only gifted mathematicians and highly educated individuals in this profession... Joining Freemasonry, at the Grande Loge nationale française (French Masonic Grand Lodge), intellectually shaped me and made me confident. It’s very challenging, for instance, I wrote a forty-page dissertation on cosmogony and the number 2... I worked like a dog...”
Intuitive. In 1988, Pierre Donnersberg founded a modest insurance brokerage business, Courtage Saint-Honoré, but with the backing of a giant name, the Edmond de Rothschild Financial Company. Donnersberg’s close ties with the family’s heir, Benjamin de Rothschild made him capable of rapidly expanding the group through a series of acquisitions with the help of the latter’s checkbook. “He is a shrewd strategist...He had the intuition ahead of the others on how this sector was going to enter a phase of consolidation”, explains Laurent Mignon, ex-president of BPCE, the group’s former banker. Donnersberg gives his all to make a name for himself. Back in the heyday of Le Laurent, a restaurant near the Élysée Palace where the business elite had their reserved spots, Donnersberg would lunch there 365 days a year. Arriving earlier, he would glance over the reservations, then set off to market himself, sharing anecdotes with his executive prey with a pat on their backs... “It was like a social club,” he explains. “That’s how I developed my address book.” Today, the Diot-Siaci Group - its name attests to the latest merger, that of the Diot and Siaci Saint-Honoré companies - is a major player in Europe, active in China, the Middle East and Africa. Donnersberg has amassed a fortune. The leading French brokerage families, even though long looking down on Oran’s pied-noir, have all “sold out” to their international competitors. Yet Donnersberg takes pride in being the only European survivor on a global scale, remaining independent to this day. “People have offered to buy me out a hundred times at a price of a fortune, but I’ll never do it. I would have been a thousand times richer, but no one will be able to carry the wealth to the grave... so the adventure goes on, to fight against my competitors and, perhaps I can overtake them!” It’s true that Donnersberg smiles all the time and his grandchildren call him “Poppy”, but don’t take it for granted, the man can turn aggressive, and his tantrums are legendary. To get him started, all you have to do is to mention that leading European companies prefer to cooperate with his foreign counterparts. “It’s clear that a brokerage firm has access to ultra-sensitive data, from the health of employees to the vulnerability of industrial sites. It’s reckless to leave ourselves in their hands! Our European sovereignty is at stake.”
Balance between work and life. It’s a message he strives to convey with limited success. This may explain his penchant for special advisors from the political sphere. As a natural ecumenist, he recruits from both left and right, in line with his preferences and concerns. Jean-Marie Le Guen, former socialist deputy and Secretary of State helped him set up in China; Bernard Kouchner, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, backed him up on health insurance issues; Édouard Courtial, senator who is of the Republicans offered him opportunities, among which the introduction of Emmanuel Macron, then Deputy Secretary General of the Élysée Palace. Myriam El Khomri, Minister of Labor in the government of François Hollande, and an acknowledged social specialist, has served as consulting director at Diot-Siaci since 2019. “What appealed to me about Pierre? He’s a pure entrepreneur. He takes risks, he’s not afraid. I didn’t know much about brokerage, but I just wanted to follow him...” Until when?
At 76 years old, Pierre Donnersberg has no intention of retiring. On the contrary, he reinforced his team with the appointment of CEO Cédric Charpentier, taken from AXA, and Thomas Devedjian - son of ex-minister Patrick Devedjian - a notable recruit from Suez. Yet he shows zero intent of stepping aside and making way for others, he’s having too much fun. Still, he managed to spend a few weeks this summer in his stunning new house with swimming pools on the island of Paros, in the Cyclades, whose decoration, as in Paris, was entrusted to the care of his better half, Anne-Céline. Why in Paros? One of his friends gave us the answer: “Because the whole of Paris is there! Bosses, bankers, TV stars, etc. That’s Pierre. No one is able to change him. That’s how he balances life and work.”
Large-scale projects with high risks. Here are some examples taken from the insurance contracts negotiated by the Diot-Siaci Group. Exceptional projects of unprecedented complexity. The Notre-Dame de Paris restoration project, the shipyards of Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire, the new TotalEnergies headquarters at La Défense currently under construction, CMA-CGM’s container and terminal ports worldwide (shown here in Long Beach, California), Alstom’s tramways and metros.
