Prosperity, death and resurrection of the Constructions Metalliques de Provence

According to Oscar Barenton‚ engineers are the surest way to lose everything ! What would he have said if he had experienced the boom in financial management ? Jean Trouchaud demonstrates the excesses of financial management in his account of the saga of the Constructions Métalliques de Provence (CMP) company in which he had been a family shareholder and where he worked as a salaried executive. Despite having become the third largest sheet metalworker in the world in the 1970s, CMP rapidly lost everything because of a governance crisis which was made worse by an unfavourable economic environment. Because the core business was not preserved‚ the company had to file for bankruptcy‚ resulting in large layoffs. Nevertheless, the broken parts of this French industrial jewel progressively came back together thanks to the determination of engineers‚ technicians and workers using traditional methods‚ as well as the intelligence of several buyers. Consequently, CMP’s know-how was saved. There are certainly lessons to be learnt today from this story.