Joseph Oughourlian

Joseph Oughourlian (born 1972 in Paris), is a French financial entrepreneur and businessman of Lebanese – Armenian origin. Founder of the activist fund Amber Capital, he invests in companies whose management he then seeks to influence.

He is also known to the public as president of the Racing Club de Lens, since June 16, 2018,

Biography

Origins and formation

Oughourlian was born in Paris on February 15, 1972. He is the son of the neuropsychiatrist Jean-Michel Oughourlian and the grandson of Mr. Oughourlian who was, from 1962 to 1983, first vice-governor of the Banque du Liban ( Central Bank of Lebanon) and a survivor of the Armenian genocide. His mother, a nurse, is English.

He attended secondary school at Sainte-Croix de Neuilly, where he obtained his baccalaureate in 1989. He graduated from the École des Hautes Etudes Commerciales de Paris (HEC Paris) and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po),. He also obtained a master's degree in economics at the Sorbonne.

Professional career

He began his career in cooperation at Société Générale in 1994.

He moved to New York in 1996 where, the following year, he began to manage funds directly, again for Société Générale. This is how he comes to create in October 2001the first Amber fund, by split, using seed capital from the bank. He then headed a fund with more than six billion in assets.

In 2005, he founded the activist investment fund Amber Capital in New York, but three years later the crisis undermined his clientele and the assets he managed. In 2012, he relocated the management company to London due to numerous investments in Europe, but also with offices in Milan; Oughourlian invests a lot in Italy (in around twenty different companies).

In December 2015, he was appointed to the board of directors of the Spanish press group Prisa. April 29, 2019, he was appointed vice-president, being the main shareholder through the company Amber Capital then chairman of the board of directors in February 2021. Once his actions in the Lagardère group were completed in France, he invested more particularly in its affairs in Madrid; in 2021 it owns almost a third of the Prisa group while Vivendi, which became a partner following the raid on Lagardère, owns almost a tenth of the shares.

As of March 1, 2020 (i.e. after the stock market crash of 2020), Amber Capital manages 1.1 billion euros in assets.

Activism

Via Amber Capital, Mr. Oughourlian invests in companies that he considers to be badly managed and whose management he seeks to influence (activist shareholder). However, he defines himself as an “active manager” and refutes the qualification of activist.

In 2014, he obtained the departure of Frédéric Vincent from his position as CEO of Nexans. In 2015, he became the first shareholder of Prisa, then forced it to restructure and sell its stake in ''Le Monde''. In 2016, he took a stake in Gameloft and raised the stakes between Vivendi and Ubisoft before allowing Vivendi to win. It also encourages Total to raise its offer for Saft.

In 2017, he led Solocal to restructure its debt and pushed Lactalis to raise its offer for Parmalat. Two years later, he asked Suez to rethink its strategy and sell its Spanish subsidiary Agbar.

In 2020, he was personally at the origin of a high-profile campaign to oust Arnaud Lagardère, whom he accuses of poor management, from his group, by demanding the revocation of Lagardère's supervisory board. This battle of shareholders also became a battle of people, between the i nterested party and Arnaud Lagardère  and lasted four years.

Personal life

Oughourlian moved in 2012 to reside in South Kensington with his wife Jennifer “Jennie” Banks and their three children. He speaks fluent English, French, Italian and Spanish.

He has been the Vice President of the Armenian General Benevolent Union in UK  since 2010.

He is also one of the main patrons of Sciences Po.

Involvement in the sporting environment

Mr. Oughourlian invested from 2015 in the Colombian club Millonarios (Bogota), then in difficulty, but left management to his partner Gustavo Serpa, Colombia is her grandmother's country of origin.

In May 2016, Mr. Oughourlian, who runs an ad hoc fund called Solferino, is preferred to two competing offers to buy the football club Racing Club de Lens, in a very delicate financial situation after five consecutive seasons in Ligue 2. The stated objective is to bring and stabilize the club in Ligue 1. But after a first season where Lens is very close to the rise, the second sees the team sinking into the bottom of the L2 classification, pushing the new owner to radical changes. In December 2017 he became the sole shareholder, after the buyout of the minority stake held by Atlético Madrid, and the June 16, 2018, chairman of the board of directors.

He recovered the club financially, reducing its losses from 17 million euros to 3 million, improving its management, assisted by a general manager, Arnaud Pouille. Mr. Oughourlian claims a policy of accessible prices for supporters, with whom he evokes a “contract” which leads him to have a social policy: “Low prices will stay low”. He declares in December 2019that "his secret dream is to bring Europe back to Bollaert", while Lens is still in Ligue 2. Accession to L1 will be obtained at the end of the 2019–2020 season, cut short by the Covid-19 pandemic. In July 2020, he became president of the new women's Racing Club de Lens .

After the rise of RC Lens in the elite, the shareholder continued to invest with personal funds, financing the recruitment of players with several million euros . In particular, he brought in the Ivorian player Seko Fofana in the summer of 2020, the biggest transfer in the history of the club. The recognition of his peers club presidents allows him to be elected to the board of directors of the Professional Football League in November 2022. In May 2023, Mr. Oughourlian's wish came true: after 16 years of absence, Lens qualified for a European Cup, the most prestigious, the Champions League. With this success, he managed to bring with him new shareholders.

In December 2017, he also became a shareholder of Calcio Padua, an Italian football club playing in Serie C, promoted to Serie B in 2018–2019.

Sources

* Gilles Fontaine, "Portrait de Mr. Oughourlian (Amber Capital)", ''Challenges'', n^o 693, 8 avril 2021, p. 40–43 (ISSN 0751-4417).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oughourlian, Joseph
French businesspeople
1972 births
Living people
PRISA TV