The Chinese Business Club, founded by a former Essec student, has set itself the task of attracting Chinese investors to France.
The 90 big Chinese bosses and billionaires who will land on the morning of April 28 at Roissy have a voracious appetite for new tricolor acquisitions. They are invited by a very posh club, hyperactive, and French despite its name: the “Chinese Business Club”. Security obliges, the name of these CEOs with the big checkbook is not disclosed. We only know that they want to shop in luxury, real estate, health and aeronautics. Last year, Chinese investment abroad reached an all-time high of $62 billion. The euro zone is their favorite land, in particular France where they shelled out $3.6 billion in 2016, with the acquisition of the owner of trendy brands Sandro, Maje and Pierlot. Among others.
It is on this powerful and rising wave of acquisitions (let us mention the Chinese stakes in Peugeot, Club Med, Accor, Pierre et Vacances...) that a young and enterprising Essec, Harold Parisot, skilfully knew how to surf. With experience in luxury real estate which launched his network of wealthy Chinese, he understood the importance for them of building an address book, the famous “Guanzi”.
Hence the creation in 2012 of the Chinese Business Club. Everything happened really fast. Harold Parisot remembers: “In September 2012, at Polo de Bagatelle, I brought together 50 French people, one or two secretaries of state and five Chinese.” From now on, eight times a year, the club organizes a big lunch for 200 guests: among them, 100 Chinese, and 100 French people handpicked among ministers, ambassadors, big or small bosses and journalists. Needless to say, business cards are exchanged in spades!
https://www.parismatch.com/Actu/Economie/Ces-milliardaires-chinois-qui-debarquent-discretement-a-Roissy-1227671
The Chinese Business Club brings together politicians, bosses, diplomats and journalists
It is during these gastronomic lunches that bonds are forged: Marcel and Laurent Dassault do not miss any, taking advantage of the opportunity to sell a few Falcons to their frequent flyer contacts. Robert Bourgi also drags his gaiters there. And this is where, for example, the president of Huawei was convinced to sponsor PSG (he ended it recently). Chinese billionaires fond of big hotels are happy to be received with great fanfare in all the Parisian palaces (on February 20, it was at the Shangri-la). The politicians most loyal to the meeting (Lang, Raffarin, Guéant, Alliot-Marie, etc.) take the temperature. Diplomats harvest their information.
Top Firm meeting
As for the bosses of L'Oréal, Club Med, Havas, Accor, BNP, Caisse des Dépôts... they are now 77 to pay an annual fee of 11,400 euros and to renew their subscription 100%. Proof, underlines Parisot, that “their business benefits from it”. It has not escaped the club president that Chinese businesswomen are more and more numerous and influential. So he had the idea of creating a special lunch for French and Chinese women every year on March 8: they were first 300 guests around Sophie Marceau, then this year 360 around Juliette Binoche and Harold Parisot 400 on March 8 around Marion Cotillard.
more information
https://twitter.com/cbcfrancechine
Nicolas Sarkozy during a meeting of the Chinese Business Club,
For these stars, as for the tricolor brands, these feasts are a superb advertising showcase in the Chinese empire. A dozen local or national media, including CCTV, the New China Agency, Phoenix TV, "People's Daily" are indeed invited: "In February, Juliette Binoche, interviewed for one minute and a half and broadcast at 8 p.m. on Phoenix TV, been seen by 500 million viewers”, calculates the president of the Chinese Business Club. His project: to open a branch in the British capital because, he says, "there are more rich Chinese in London than in Paris, also more big brands and the English are more inclined than the French to pay a contribution to a private club!
