Mr. Ambition's Biggest Bid

By Frederick Ungeheuer

The French gave the world the word entrepreneur, but they have not given it many entrepreneurs. Most French businessmen still look to the government for cues and favors rather than trying to make quick profits on their own. Bernard Tapie, 47, is one of a new breed who is changing all that. Last week the Paris businessman made his boldest venture yet, offering to buy 80% of West Germany's Adidas, a company 15 times the size of his holding company, Groupe Tapie.

Adidas, which had sales last year of $2.8 billion, is one of the most famous trademarks in the world. A recent study showed that in the Soviet Union it was the second most recognized brand after Sony, and Adidas equipped 15 of the 24 teams competing at this month's World Cup. The company, though, has fallen on hard times since the death three years ago of a son of the founder, Horst Dassler. Last year Adidas lost $72 million on its worldwide operations. The company has been losing market share, especially in the U.S., to such major rivals as Reebok and Nike. Tapie, who owns a soccer club in Marseilles, was in Rome for the World Cup finals when the deal was announced. He told reporters that this was a unique chance "to realize my three biggest passions with one project: sports, business and politics."

The son of a pipe fitter from a working-class suburb of Paris, Tapie carried sacks of coal as a youngster to help pay the family's rent. He graduated from a second-rate engineering school rather than from one of the grandes ecoles that train France's business and bureaucratic elite. For a decade, he has been challenging the country's risk-averse Establishment; his specialty is reviving troubled companies in niche industries. Tapie once had a popular TV show on which he preached, "Create companies and earn big money through entrepreneurship." The program was unabashedly named Ambition, and his best- selling book was titled Success.

Tapie made his first million dollars by the age of 39, and in 1985 Groupe Tapie had revenues of $1 billion. By the following year, it was operating 116 factories in 28 countries. Recently, though, he has been selling assets and trimmed sales to $180 million. If Tapie succeeds in acquiring Adidas, it will put him at the head of one of the world's leading makers of sporting goods. His group's holdings in the past included the company that makes Look ski bindings, and he still retains ownership of Belgium's Donnay tennis rackets, which has fallen on bad times since Bjorn Borg, its main promoter, left the pro circuit.

The day after news of the Adidas offer broke, the Paris stock exchange halted trading in his company's shares as doubts spread that Tapie could muster the backing from French banks to finance the takeover. At the time he was aboard his 90-ft. yacht in the Mediterranean, but his company put out a statement saying "the total price" he would have to pay for Adidas "will make all those who doubt our financial ability look ridiculous." Some reports put the figure at $450 million. Tapie's bid for Adidas could also benefit from the French government's unofficial blessing. With the tacit approval of President Francois Mitterrand, Tapie in 1988 won a seat in the National Assembly, running as an independent candidate.

Reassurance that Tapie's deal is for real also came from American entrepreneur Peter Ueberroth, whose Contrarian Group last year assumed managerial control and part ownership of Adidas' U.S. operations. Ueberroth met Horst Dassler in 1979 and with his help and advice transformed the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles into the first one ever to make a profit. Ueberroth has already staunched Adidas' U.S. losses, and in May he flew to Paris for a first meeting with Tapie. Ueberroth said last week he was "impressed with Tapie's global vision" and ability to give slipping companies new energy.

With reporting by Farah Nayeri/Paris