AS Monaco breathed a collective sigh of relief on Tuesday night after the 2-1 away victory in the local derby against Nice.
The win avenges the 4-0 thrashing Monaco received last September, and pushes Monaco into the semi-finals of the French League Cup.
Striker Keita Baldé set up both goals for Monaco, missing star striker Radamel Falcao. Thomas Lemar headed the ball home three minutes into the game and shortly afterwards had a goal disallowed for offside. After Nice equalised in the 18th, Monaco took the lead again in the 38th minute.
Monaco coach Leonardo Jardim pointed out why the win was so important: ”It was important for two reasons: because we have qualified for the semi-finals and it was an objective of ours to go as far as possible in this competition, and because it was a derby and so it was important for our supporters.
“It has not gone well here the last couple of times. Today was hugely satisfying. We used a different approach to get our two goals. It is to be expected that we are stronger with the injured players back. We have a competitive squad to enable us to play every three days.”
Lucien Favre, the Nice coach, was clearly disappointed: ”It is hard to swallow because the chance was there for us to go through. We are very disappointed to be eliminated. We will need to pick ourselves up in the league.”
Monaco’s undefeated basketball team kept their record intact after winning 94-65 away to Enisey Krasnoyarsk in an important Group A game in the Champions League on Wednesday, January 10.
Despite the 15-hour travel time to Siberia, Monaco’s players found their form late in the game after trailing at half-time, putting on a fine show and rolling to another decisive victory.
First in their European pool, the Roca Boys are also leaders of the regular season of Pro A and will put their title in play at the next Leaders Cup from February 16 to 18 at the Disney Events Arena.
Monaco’s next game is at home to Limoges on Sunday, January 14, at 6:30 pm.
Francesco Grosoli, Barclays’ newly appointed Europe, Middle East and Africa Chief Executive Officer for Wealth and investment Management, shows Louise Simpson the colour of money over lunch
“This is a first for the principality,” says Francesco Grosoli.
We’re sitting in a light-infused boardroom in Barclays Monaco as Mr Grosoli tells me about his recent promotion over lunch. It’s the first time that a Monaco-bred-and-based professional has risen through the ranks of a global company to such a high level.
“Usually it’s the opposite,” he continues. “Top roles are recruited from abroad.”
Barclays is used to breaking the mould. Dating back to…
1690, it was arguably the first bank (still trading under the same name) to develop an international, multi-tasking mandate. It was also one of the first foreign institutions to set up in Monaco in the 1920s. Nowadays Barclays Monaco is a stable banking brand in an unstable market dogged by changes of ownership within the principality (including the recent sale of Coutts International to Union Bancaire Privée and the expected sale of Credit Suisse) and scandals across the European private-banking sector. Such uncertainty has helped to solidify Barclays’ reputation as a safe choice for the Anglo-Saxon community.
“We sell the Britishness of our organisation. We’re the bridge for our clients between the UK and the rest of the world. We work with those wanting less or more UK exposure (e.g. for real-estate/kids’ education/lifestyle reasons). We help international clients with our three main platforms in Monaco, Switzerland and Dubai.”
This golden triangle is at the heart of his international strategy as Mr Grosoli seeks to integrate the three businesses of Europe, Middle East and Africa into one streamlined EMEA organization.
Since his arrival at Barclays in 2007, Mr Grosoli has quadrupled the size of the business, quadrupled the revenues and multiplied the staff by 250%. He has repositioned the Monaco branch as one of the top four wealth managers in the region and as the largest investment house within the Monaco banking sector with over 1.5 billion euros in trading activity in 2015. During his tenure, he has also overseen a 16-month, top-to-bottom building renovation (that involved 220 phases of moving people around) and installed an in-house chef (in collaboration with the Fairmont Hotel) to cook for up to 25 clients per day. Mr Grosoli seems to have the Midas touch.
“My real passion is my job,” he says.
Our conversation is momentarily broken off as an assistant adorned with a Hermès scarf comes in to pass a message onto Mr Grosoli. As they speak, I gaze around the boardroom with its Damian Hirst crystal wall panels, across the polished model yacht pivoting our dining table and out the Belle-Époque windows towards the manicured casino garden terraces. I muse that everything about Barclays Monaco is impeccably groomed including its CEO.
Mr Grosoli’s ability to smooth things over is apparent as we touch upon the recent Libor-fixing scandal (which saw Barclays pay a £1.5 billion fine). Conduct risk moved to the top of Barclays’ agenda and regulations were introduced to tighten up the grey areas of banking. Mr Grosoli credits Prince Albert with furthering the trend towards transparency and for his work in helping to evolve the principality’s reputation.
“The dodginess of the principality is fading away.”
Over our main course of roasted sea bass, we turn to the subject of technological infrastructure. Mr Grosoli describes how the banking sector is keeping abreast of huge advances in digital technology at a time when it’s already drowning in newly-coined regulatory frameworks that slow down the service output. He admits that the limited time schedule to implement regulatory changes has presented a challenge and has highlighted the industry-wide lack of investment in the technological side of wealth management business over the last few decades.
“Our new generation of clients will need a high level of digital technology. Their day-to-day lives involve Amazon and Shazam and will soon involve Blippar. We have to respond to that.”
2016 presents another challenge for Mr Grosoli with the current tricky trading period. He talks of the importance of servicing clients closely through more challenging investment cycles.
“Some bankers just phone the clients when the performances are good. That’s too easy. You should call the client twice or three times more often in a bad period because the market cannot go up all the time.”
I feel sure that Mr Grosoli will rise to all these challenges. His chameleon-like adaptability stems perhaps from childhood. He was born in Padua in Italy to an opera-singer mother and an industrialist father who made his millions in the meat–processing business with the help of a lucrative contract with car-company Fiat as well as multinational contracts from China and Russia to Romania. In 1975, his family joined other Italians moving to Monaco for security reasons in the wake of multiple kidnappings by the notorious Italian paramilitary organization, the Red Brigade.
“The move was supposed to be for just a few years while waiting for the situation to resolve itself in Italy.”
A few years became four decades. From a shy eight-year-old boy who didn’t speak a word of French for his first three years in the principality, Mr Grosoli progressed through the Monegasque schooling system and finished his studies in economics at university in Nice. His banking career started at the bottom on an internship with BSI (at the time a small asset management company).
“On my first morning, I was asked to go out and buy water from the supermarket and make photocopies.”
Mr Grosoli rose rapidly through the ranks helping to oversee the company’s transition from an asset management company into a bank from scratch. From BSI, he moved to Republic National Bank (that later became HSBC) where he was promoted to head of private banking. After his move to Barclays, Mr Grosoli retrieved the third floor of the Barclays building from BSI. With a twist of serendipity, his current desk is located just under his first private office at BSI.
As we delve into our mango-and-raspberry Carpaccio dessert, Mr Grosoli enlarges on his recipe for success in banking. While intellectual credentials open the door, he believes that the essential ingredients for interns are modesty, passion and hard work.
“When you start, don’t assume you know everything. You have zero experience and experience comes with work, work and work. You need to spend a lot of time at your desk. There’s no other recipe.”
We stretch our legs before coffee with a tour of the bank’s artworks by Monaco-born Benjamin Shine: the most striking is a Barclays Spread Eagle punctuated by global currencies made entirely of lacquered five-cent euro coins on a laser-cut aluminium base. Apart from euros, I wonder what makes Mr Grosoli tick.
“Of course I like cars, watches and other boys’ toys.”
His free time is spent with his two children and his Cuban wife. He enjoys family travel to the Maldives and Miami, but admits that his thirst for leisure travel has waned with the increase in his business travel (Mr Grosoli took 50 flights to and from London alone last year). He also enjoys playing Ipad games with his eight-year-old son, although he is conscious of the danger of children shutting themselves into this virtual reality.
“It’s very different from my childhood growing up with Pac-Man.”
Back in the boardroom, chocolates arrive with my macchiato. I notice that they’re Marcolini – my favorite Belgian chocolatier.
“He has an interesting story,” says Mr Grosoli. “He’s an Italian émigré who started in the business at the bottom and then made it all the way to the top.”
The same could be said for the remarkable Italian émigré sitting in front of me.
Article first published March 2016.
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Monte Carlo Ballet director wins Lifetime Achievement Award
Prince Albert stops by to see Jean-Christophe Maillot, Choreographer-Director of the Ballets de Monte-Carlo. Photo: Facebook Monaco Info
Jean-Christophe Maillot, the long-serving director of choreography at the Ballets of Monte-Carlo, has been honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Prix de Lausanne. He will receive the prize in person on February 3.
Jean-Christophe Maillot has a long common history with the prestigious competition, having won the prize as a young dancer in 1977 and serving on the jury in 1986, 1988, 1989, and 1992. He was president of the jury in 1994, 1997, 2000, and 2012.
In an interview with the organisation, Maillot commented that in today’s world of dance, the Prix de Lausanne is “unique”. “This is the only ballet competition I agree to participate in as a jury member because, more importantly than the dancer’s performance, it is the attention paid to their future career which makes this competition so exceptional.
“This competition continues to reflect the extraordinary artistic and human qualities of its founders Elvire and Philippe Braunschweig, and Rosella Hightower: three very important figures in my career, Maillot said.
Other dancers from the Ballets of Monte-Carlo who have won the prize, now in its 46th year, are Bernice Coppieters, Asier Uriagereka, Jeroen Verbruggen, Le Wang and Michael Grunecker. The Lausanne Prize is awarded to dancers aged between 14 and 19.
The Prize is supported by a total of 70 academies of dance, including the Ballets of Monte-Carlo and the Princess Grace Academy.
Monaco’s Urban Planning Department is undertaking the complete renovation of the popular children’s play area at Place des Moulins, in the Trocadero gardens.
The redevelopment of the garden, which also bears the name Jardin Marcel Pagnol as a tribute to the writer who lived in the Principality, concerns the complete replacement of existing structures by two modern structures and individual installations on the theme of mills, suitable for all age groups.
It will also include the installation of new fences and gates, the replacement of the shock-absorbing floor and the renovation of green spaces near the playground.
Work will begin on Monday, January 15, and end mid-March. The playground will be closed during this period. The closest play area is at Pont La Rousse, Annonciade Square (pictured below).
The Monaco Yacht Club will be hosting the Monaco Optimist Team Race for young sailors, starting January 11, with prizes for the top three teams and the winners receiving the Monaco Optimist Team Race trophy.
The event, which runs until January 14, is open to 16 teams of four sailors who have not yet reached the age of 14, and will take the form of a regatta with races of four Optimists. This year a total of 11 nations are presented from the four corners of Europe, including Croatia and Russia, Spain, Italy and France. There will also be a team representing Tunisia.
The first race will be at noon on Thursday, and the event will culminate with prize-giving on Sunday at 5 pm at the Yacht Club.
