April 23rd, 2008
From the archive: the fall of Marcel Boussac
Thirty years ago, a French business legend was peering into the abyss. Once classed as one of the world’s richest men, Marcel Boussac was known as King Cotton, ruler of an eponymous textiles empire that included the Dior haute couture house, which he founded. But in April 1978, the heavily indebted Boussac group was on the verge of collapse. Its autocratic but paternalistic owner, then 89 years old, had failed to respond to a surge in cheap imports from developing countries, and had also been left vulnerable by the rise of synthetic fibres. Could Mr Boussac ward off bankruptcy with yet another attempt at restructuring?
