Robert Louis-Dreyfus

Robert Louis-Dreyfus ( – ) was a French businessman who was chief executive officer (CEO) of Adidas (then Adidas Salomon) and Saatchi & Saatchi. He was a majority shareholder of the French football team Marseille, and during his tenure they re-emerged as a major European club.

Early life Robert Louis-Dreyfus was born in Paris, the son of Jean and Jeanne Madeline (née Depierre) Louis-Dreyfus. His father was Jewish and his mother Roman Catholic. He was a great-grandson of Léopold Louis-Dreyfus, founder of the Louis-Dreyfus Group, which had begun buying and selling wheat in the Alsace region a century earlier, and rapidly diversified into shipping, oil and other commodities. His grandfather was Louis Louis-Dreyfus, who served in the French Parliament. He has two sisters: Marie-Jeanne and Monique.

Robert Louis-Dreyfus was initially a student who failed his Baccalauréat, Louis-Dreyfus invested his own money in Saatchi & Saatchi, and during his tenure the agency grew considerably.

He proved equally successful when in 1994 he took the top job at Adidas, the German-based sporting goods maker. Louis-Dreyfus added to the brand by streamlining the product line and adding new companies to the group, including the Salomon ski-wear and golf company in 1997. He remained CEO of Adidas until 2001, combining this position with chairmanship of Neuf Telecom, with whom he worked until 2004. He also was a director of Neuf Cegetel.

Louis-Dreyfus re-joined the family company, Louis-Dreyfus Group, in May 2000, and restructured this major commodities trading and merchandising firm.

In 2005, he decided to relaunch the Le Coq Sportif sports company through a Swiss investment company, Airesis.

Sporting interests In 1996, Louis-Dreyfus became the majority shareholder of French football team Olympique de Marseille, who had recently been rocked by a major match fixing scandal and subsequently relegated to the French second division as part of their punishment. Louis-Dreyfus, with Adidas and the telecommunications company Neuf, sponsored the team; Louis-Dreyfus invested heavily in rebuilding the Marseille squad and the financial fortunes of the club improved, with shirt sales notably improving. However, trophies still eluded the club despite reaching the final of the UEFA Cup on two occasions, in 1999 and 2004, and losing twice consecutively in the final of the Coupe de France, in 2006 and 2007. Marseille also missed out on the Ligue 1 title during Louis-Dreyfus's tenure, though shortly before his death OM finished second to Bordeaux and qualified for the group stage of the UEFA Champions League. Following his passing in July 2009, his wife Margarita Louis-Dreyfus took over as the majority shareholder of the club.

Louis-Dreyfus was also a shareholder in the Belgium football club Standard Liège, and was involved in the creation of Infront Sports & Media in 2002 (transition from the former KirchSport completed in February 2003), and was its chairman and majority shareholder until his death. The Swiss-based sports marketing agency handled the media rights distribution of the FIFA World Cup in 2002 and 2006. Today, it is the marketing partner of 130 sports federations and clubs.

FIFA World Cup bribery allegations In October 2015, the German news magazine Der Spiegel reported that the bidding committee for the FIFA World Cup 2006 had set up a slush fund that Louis-Dreyfus, at the time CEO of Adidas, filled with CHF 10.3 million in 2000. Allegedly, these funds were used to bribe numerous FIFA officials and secure Germany's bid to host the 2006 World Cup, while a FIFA report had strongly criticised England's supposedly 'unprofessional' rival bid presentation. According to internal FIFA documents, Louis-Dreyfus had demanded a repayment of the funds in 2004, which were transferred as €6.7 million via a FIFA account in Geneva to an account held by Louis-Dreyfus.

Death Louis-Dreyfus died in Zürich aged 63 on 4 July 2009, following a long period with leukemia.

Personal life Louis-Dreyfus was married twice. Before divorcing his first wife, Sarah Oberholzer, Eric, Maurice, and Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, In the late 1990s, Louis-Dreyfus began a relationship with the German investor Nicole Junkermann, who was three decades younger than him, while he was still married to Bogdanova.

Louis-Dreyfus identified as an agnostic. she is considered to be the richest Russian woman today. Margarita inherited 60% of the organization (increased to 65% in 2012). Robert's two sisters, Monique Louis-Dreyfus Roosmale Nepveu and Marie-Jeanne Louis-Dreyfus Meyer, each own 12% and are now both billionaires.